With Or Without You
by SALJStella
Summary: Adam and Lawrence have learned that they can't live with each other. But when Adam's self-desctruction forces him into a hospital, and Lawrence becomes his doctor, they have to ask themselves if they can live without each other, either. AdamLawrence.
1. Prologue: It's Easier To Love

**A/N: ****Okay, I've got a riddle for you: What is the first thing MadlyInLove does after she's finished an Adam/Lawrence-fic she's worked on since Christmas? She starts a new one! And she really hopes you'll like this short little prologue! **

**Prologue: It's Easier To Love**

"Adam!"

The breath comes out in burning thrusts, his chest is aching, because he's running, he's running quicker than he's ever done before, his shoes are smacking against the floor beneath him.

"Adam!"

He's running. He's running towards something that he doesn't even know where it is, he just knows that it's in here, in this hospital, Adam is in here even though he doesn't have to be, Lawrence could've stopped it, _he could've kept that little moron healthy if he'd only let him! _

He stops outside one of the doors. It takes his oxygen-lacking brain a while to register that the words on the little sign next to the door actually spell out _Faulkner, Adam James, _and even when it's succeeded with this, it takes him a moment to get the energy to lift his hand and grab the doorknob.

His head is spinning, the corridor is spinning, he tastes blood in the back of his throat.

And he's scared.

He's so damn scared of what he'll see when he opens the door.

But when actually makes himself open the door, he doesn't see nearly as terrible things as he's expected. Or maybe just believed, in a very paranoid part of his brain.

He sees Adam. Pale, and on a hospital bed, thin as a skeleton, and his face is coated with a thing layer of sweat. But he's there, he's alive, he has a lot of machines connected to his arms, but he's there. And Lawrence gets senselessly relieved and mind-numbingly angry in the same time.

"Adam!"

He's at his bed in two big leaps. Adam wrinkles his forehead and startles, but there's a big chance that he only merely hears Lawrence in his clinical unconsciousness.

"Damn it, Adam!"

Lawrence doesn't know what else to say. There really is no another way to express everything he feels right now, his joy and his anxiety, his sorrow and his relief, his love and his fury.

So he just bends down, doesn't really hug him, just presses his forehead against Adam's shoulder, grabs his hospital gown, feels the bones under Adam's skin, his body doesn't have any warmth, no warmth at all.

"Damn it, Adam! Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

And Adam just grunts softly, lifts his slim arms and puts them around Lawrence's shoulders. He probably doesn't even know that he's doing it, he'd never allow himself to do it if he actually was aware of it, would never admit that he loves Lawrence, never.

And that's why he's in here right now.

**I just wanted to post this, since I'm going away soon. And I know it's confusing, but what the hell. It's probably just God's way to tell you to review… Or something. **


	2. Empty Words

**A/N: Hey there! I ****know the last chapter was damn confusing, so I decided to update this and set some records straight instead of updating my other fic… And it's all because I'm a sucker for readers! **

**1: Empty Words**

Lawrence would always love Adam.

That's the promise he'd given him. Adam was half asleep when he got it, but he still remembers it. No matter how hard he's tried to forget it.

Still remembers how Lawrence's strong arm sneaked around his waist, pulled him out of his sleep and into a consciousness that wasn't really a consciousness, just a condition of a still dozing, a drowsy slumber, a condition where his head wasn't above the water but still close enough to the surface for the pale 4:00 AM-light to reach him, a condition where he wasn't awake but still able to hear Lawrence's soft whisper, feel his warm breath on his neck: _I will always love you, Adam. _

And Adam had mumbled that he loved Lawrence, too, mumbled with an almost girly shyness captured in his own dull, slurry voice.

And it had been true.

Right then, it had been true.

And it hadn't even been just then, it had been all the time. All the time, ever since Adam first saw Lawrence laying in his hospital bed, pale, unconscious and so cold that his teeth were chattering, but alive. He'd loved him all along.

Adam had nagged a hole into his nurse's head after they'd made it out of the bathroom. He'd swallowed the pride that had been both the end and the beginning of his and Lawrence's relationship, clutched to the nurse's disinfected hand and _begged. _And he'd gotten the permission to see Lawrence, he'd gotten to stand up on legs that shook with nervousness, because _what if he doesn't want to see me, what if I'm a bad memory, what if he's upset over those pictures, what if… _

And he'd walked into Lawrence's room. Seen him there, and been forced to swallow a big, annoyingly sentimental lump of tears in his throat.

Seen him, and sat on a chair next to his bed for almost two hours, until Lawrence's furrowed brows twitched and then loosened up, until his pale, cold hands were lifted to rub his temples.

Yes. Adam had sat on that damn chair for almost two hours, and when Lawrence woke up, he didn't even dare to give in to that warm wave that rose in his bitterly brewing soul and throw his arms around Lawrence's neck, didn't even dare to allow that lump that lingered in his throat to melt and pour out of his eyes.

He didn't dare. Because that wasn't his thing.

He didn't do it because he was a chicken.

It had been Lawrence that finally turned to the side and saw Adam sitting there, Lawrence who'd called out Adam's name in a joyful cry, grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into his chest.

And not even Adam was cowardly enough to disagree then.

He wasn't even cowardly enough to acknowledge the fact that it was obvious that Lawrence's embrace was given out of more than relief, the fact that Lawrence's cold hand had sneaked up, into his hair, the fact that Lawrence's head had tilted so much to the side that his lips had grazed over Adam's cheek. Right then, it'd just been a moment's impulse. A stupid, tickling, dangerous impulse, something they did because they wanted to, not needed to, something they did even though they knew they shouldn't.

Just like that last moment in the bathroom. And right then, it they left it at that. Right then

The love hadn't come until afterwards. When they got out of the hospital.

That was when those subtle signs happened too often to ignore, when the little things had gotten so many that they turned into one big thing.

Small, small things.

Like Lawrence's arm that lingered a few extra seconds when he put it around Adam's shoulders.

Like the way Adam, maybe not completely subconsciously, collapsed with his head in Lawrence's lap those nights when he'd drunken too much.

Like the way Lawrence's hand made a detour over Adam's cheek when they hugged each other goodbye after a day together.

The little things that soon turned into more, that turned into Adam's insecure fingers that sneaked in between the buttons in Lawrence's shirt, Lawrence's tongue deep inside of Adam's mouth, his hands that still traveled over Adam's cheek, but that didn't stop this time, they crept down, down, down.

They loved each other. And they would always love each other.

Until it ended.

Until Adam couldn't take it anymore.

His life had been okay up until the bathroom. He'd been okay with being a loser, he'd been okay with being alone, simply because the loneliness was unconditional. He didn't have to adjust to the loneliness, the loneliness didn't judge him, the loneliness didn't wake him up in the middle of the night and whispered in his ear: _But Adam, you're twenty-eight years old now, you haven't paid the rent in three months, and you're a fair photographer, you don't have to live this way, you don't have to stay in an apartment where the walls close down around you… _

But Lawrence did.

He didn't mean to. But he did.

It was like he, just with his expensive shoes and the doctor ID-badge that so subtly glimpsed in his wallet all those times, _all those uncountable fucking times _when they'd gone out and eaten and Lawrence had held out a rejecting hand when Adam picked up his own wallet, sort of _pointed out _how pathetic his life was.

How good Adam could have it. If he dared to take the chance.

Lawrence did everything that the loneliness didn't. And maybe that was the reason why Adam suddenly got so aware of how vulnerable he was, of what a big piece of his heart that was in Lawrence's open palm, of that Lawrence all the sudden could decide that he was sick of Adam, that he was good at fucking, sure, but still not worth his time.

And that was all so stupid. It wasn't Lawrence's fault, it was Adam's. It was Adam who was stupid and scared and childish. But that didn't really matter, because the gist is still there: The promise is broken.

There had been a time when everything was carefree, when Adam could listen to Lawrence when he said, with such pure and untainted love, whispered in his ear that he would always love him, that time could hurry on, that the sky could crumble and fall down outside their window, but Lawrence would still love Adam. For eternity.

But now, it's been a year since Adam packed all of Lawrence's stuff up in a big bag while he was at work, now, it's been a year since the fear overcame his suppressed, confused love and he broke all the bonds.

Now, when Lawrence hugs Adam in his hospital bed, when Adam's life, his drugs, his drinking, his malnourishment, his self-destruction have hollowed his body from inside out, it's been a year since their eternity ended.

**ARGH! Can you believe I wrote that? I've broken my sweethearts up! Ah, wel**l**… As long as you review, I think I can at least get them to make out a little… **


	3. A Thin Layer Of Ice

**A/N: ****(Mutters) Damn World War II… As if it wasn't enough when it happened, it still causes trouble sixty years later, since my studying on the damn thing has kept me from writing! Sorry about that (I know I say it all the time now days, but still!) Anyway, read on… **

**2: A Thin Layer Of Ice **

Adam tells himself it was a weak moment.

That was all. A weak moment. No one's supposed to see him like that, not even Lawrence, _especially _not Lawrence is supposed to see him those moments when it gets too much, when the hopelessness breaks down his mask of indifference.

Lawrence isn't supposed to see him like that.

Because Lawrence is a doctor. Lawrence takes all those moments and stocks them up in his head, and later, when Adam denies them, he puts them out, like a cop puts out his evidence.

And then, not even Adam can deny them. Because they're fresh in his mind, too, simply because the bitterness they bring scorch, like someone's just burned him with a cigarette, in the very bottom of his soul.

The bitterness that follows those fleeting moments. The moments when he suddenly stops thinking about his fear of commitments, his fear of being vulnerable, the moments when he doesn't have to think about the twenty-nine years that his ID so naïvely claims even though he's experienced more terrible things than any eighty year-old, and actually regress, turn into a child again and crawl up into Lawrence's arms, forget about the world and the pain that it's caused him, and actually think that it feels _good _to have another person with him, someone else's breath in his hair, someone else's heart beating in unison with his own.

But that was then. A weak moment. And now, Adam regrets it, deeply and sincerely. He regrets that he gave in to that smidge of affection for Lawrence that was left behind when he erased all the feelings he had for him and actually hugged him back when he came into Adam's hospital room. Because that moment was all Lawrence needed to give in himself for the only two feelings _he's _ever felt for Adam: Doctor-instincts and pity.

So now, Adam's still in his hospital bed, fully awake and in such a bad mood that Lawrence can swear that he sees a thunder cloud over his head, and Lawrence paces back and forth in front of him with a clipboard in his hand, asks questions and writes things down, and Adam just wants to hop out of the bed and jam that damn pen down his throat.

Just one moment.

What a fucking idiot he is. He _knows _Lawrence, even if he doesn't love him anymore, knows that he's a doctor, heart and soul.

"Name?" Lawrence says, seemingly more out of reflex than anything else, because he jots that down without Adam bothering to answer. "Faulkner, Adam James."

"How insightful," Adam says acidly and stares blindly into the table in front of him.

"Still sarcastic, I can tell," Lawrence says softly.

And he looks up from his chart and smiles briefly, and then, Adam wants him to stop being Lawrence and turn into doctor Gordon again.

Lawrence has two sides. And if Adam has to choose between doctor Gordon, cold and clinical, sympathetic because he has to be, and Lawrence, tender and loving, with warm hands on both sides of Adam's face, who's sympathetic because he wants to be, because Adam is _Adam, _and he loves him, Adam prefers the former.

Adam isn't sure how to answer Lawrence's comment. Come to think of it, he doesn't _want _to answer, so he keeps staring into the table in front of him.

Doesn't want to see those concerned blue eyes.

"Age?" Lawrence continues, and then adds: "Twenty-nine. And no congenital diseases?"

Short questions. Clipped at the edges. Doctor voice.

"Asthma," Adam says lowly.

"And you have a great way to treat it, too," Lawrence says maliciously.

"By the way, speaking of sarcasms: If you can't pull them off, don't even try," Adam bites back. "Didn't you learn anything from being together… Sorry, from fucking me when you got bored?"

Then, Lawrence lifts his gaze from the clipboard and lays it on Adam, and Adam hates it, hates it, but he immediately regrets that he said that, simply because Lawrence knows _exactly _how to sneak into the cage that Adam's trapped his conscience in, sneak in and release it, just by making those concerned eyes so unbelievably, coldly, dreadfully _disappointed, _and then, not even Adam can stay untouched.

Lawrence says nothing. The silence is like a damp, sour dishcloth between them, and Adam won't, can't look away, can't until Lawrence slowly shakes his head and fills in an empty space in his chart.

"You're still smoking."

It's a statement, not a question. Adam doesn't answer this time, either.

"How much?"

Adam shrugs.

"Varies. Six packs a day, if I got the time."

Lawrence sighs _– disappointed – _and writes something new down.

"Just cigarettes?" He then goes on. "No drugs?"

"Yeah. Marijuana, every now and then. If I can afford it."

"Mm," Lawrence replies.

The cold thing hasn't disappeared from his eyes. It's even reached down to his voice, and Adam isn't sure if he likes it or not.

The cold thing in Lawrence's voice strengthens the cold in Adam's, the cold in his voice and the cold in his heart. And that's more comfortable, he doesn't have to think, doesn't have to feel, gets away from that annoying impulse to grab Lawrence's shoulders, grab his frosty voice's anxious longing, tear away that damn lab coat.

But he can't think that that's _only _a good thing.

And that annoys him even more.

"God forbid that you put too much money on drugs, so you can't afford regular cigarettes," Lawrence adds. "You drink?"

"Yeah."

"How much?"

"Not more than average."

"And what's average to you?"

Now, a big enough part of Adam's real self has finally returned for him to sigh and roll his eyes.

"Would you fucking drop it?!" He explodes. "Why the hell do you ask me this stuff? You _know _how much I fucking drink, you _know _that I turn into a damn junkie sometimes, you _know…"_

"I know _everything _about you, Adam!"

As quickly as a hair burns up.

That quick is Lawrence's outburst, so unexpected that Adam actually stops talking, because that's how defenseless he is for Lawrence's eyes that land on him again, not cold and disappointed but blazingly, impatiently, flashingly _angry, _and Adam's voice leaves him, the bones in his neck leave him and his head sinks down between his shoulders.

He doesn't care about Lawrence.

But when Lawrence, calm, secure, anger-doesn't-solve-anything-Lawrence, suddenly turns into everything he's not supposed to be…

Then it's another one of those times when Adam can't stay untouched.

Another one of those times that he'll curse later on.

"I know _everything _about you, Adam," Lawrence repeats, with pressure on every syllable, it's like they're being carved into stone. "But weather you like it or not, hell, weather you _answer _them or not, I'll ask these questions! Okay?"

Adam wants to nod, agree out of a reflex like a scared little boy, agree just to make Lawrence stop sounding like that, just because he doesn't like Lawrence's voice that way, but he keeps his stone face, forces his gaze to drip with disdain.

Weak moment. Only a moment.

"Because your paycheck still isn't big enough?"

God, the words just feel wrong on his tongue.

"You just couldn't let a single patient slip between your fingers?"

The fire in Lawrence's eyes fades out. Now, he looks down, sighs slowly and tiredly, and when he speaks up, Adam has to repress his own relief, because his voice is normal again.

"Adam," Lawrence says softly, still without actually looking at him, "I'm not even your original doctor. But one of my interns told me that she'd just registered a pale, sickly thin, dark-haired little kid that had struggled so much when they tried to bring him to the ambulance that they had to drug him, and his lunges looked like sun-dried tomatoes in the chest X-ray. And I had to trade away all my free weekends to make you my patient."

He doesn't look at him.

But these words, these words that are so insecure and so fumbling, so soft and worriedly trembling, almost have a bigger effect on Adam than his furious hissing.

Lawrence cares about him.

After this entire year, after all of Adam's dry shots at his confidence, he still cares.

Lawrence sighs again. And then he says, almost dejectedly:

"You haven't eaten, either, have you?"

Adam shakes his head. The sarcastic comment that slides up through his throat falls flat on the tip of his tongue.

"Why not?"

Adam shrugs again.

"It… Doesn't feel right," he mutters, a little annoyed again, finally, thank God. "Everything just swells in my mouth."

Lawrence nods sharply, like he doesn't have the energy to disagree anymore, and writes something down on his clipboard.

Adam looks at the pens in Lawrence's pocket. Lawrence always sorts his pens from left to right by how chewed-down the cap of it is. Lawrence gnaws on the tip of his pens, since he used to bite his nails, and this was a good replacement for that, and when Adam asked him why he was standing after using a pen, critically comparing its cap with the others that were in a neat line in the pocket of his coat, Lawrence had answered, with a chuckle, that you'd never survive as a doctor unless you had at least one obsession. A memory that's no longer a mere, two-dimensional image in Adam's mind anymore.

"And your arms?" Lawrence asks.

Adam grumbles something and puts his arms under the disinfected blanket out of reflex. Gets a little ashamed.

Ashamed of the scars. Ashamed of the circle-shaped burns from cigarettes.

"You've made those all by yourself, I assume?" Lawrence asks, like he's talking about the decoration of Adam's apartment.

Adam rolls his eyes.

"Yeah. Shame on me."

The irony. Because he is ashamed.

The moment he did it, it felt absolutely right, made perfect sense, because what numbs an emotional pain better than a physical one?

That was how he'd been reasoning when he grabbed the razor in his bathroom cabinet, which he really only kept for times like these, because God knows he doesn't grow facial hair easily, and drew it across his arm, felt the icy, pricking pain.

It hurt like hell. It was a screeching joy.

But now, the scars are there. That annoys Adam, the way he planned it, he'd cut himself, and then it'd heal and then nothing would be left, but the scars are there. Criss-crossing, like a terrible embroidery over his arms, some have almost faded away, some are thin, white chalk lines, some are fresh and pink, one hasn't even healed yet, but is still covered by a band-aid, he must've done that right before the paramedics found him. He doesn't really remember. Maybe he'd been high.

Either way, they're there. The scars.

A constant proof of weakness. A constant proof that he actually had an emotional pain to numb.

Just like those concerned, blue eyes that stare at him now.

Adam hates them. Hates the scars. Hates Lawrence.

Wants him. Still.

Lawrence sighs again and writes one last thing down on his clipboard.

"Okay," he says in a professional voice. "I'll be right back, I just have to give this to my nurse."

Adam swallows another sarcastic response when Lawrence leaves the room.

Okay. Fine. Seeing Lawrence again wakes up old feelings in him. There! He said it! Happy now?

But Jesus, Adam really did love Lawrence. And not even he is strong enough to be completely unaffected by seeing him again, even if they didn't exactly ended on great terms!

Plus, it's not Lawrence that he misses.

He misses his body. That's all.

He misses Lawrence's body, he misses the weight of it on top of his own, misses his warmth, his tongue in Adam's mouth. But it doesn't matter. It's okay. It's okay.

Adam can resist attraction. He is _that _strong. And Lawrence isn't the only one he can fuck. He's not that picky.

It doesn't matter that the actual sex was so insanely, ragingly, _mind-numbingly _good, that Lawrence kissed him with tongue and teeth and lips until Adam's entire body ached for him, that the stinging scar from the bullet in his shoulder almost stopped hurting when Lawrence's tongue ran over it, that he'd kept a gentle, _way too fucking gentle_ hand on Adam's erection until he got an orgasm that put white flashes in front of his eyes.

It doesn't matter.

Adam stretches his neck to check if Lawrence is on his way. Fine, he said he'd be right back, and Adam knows it's not far from here to the nurses' station, but that's just another thing that doesn't matter, because at this point, Adam's so hard and the memory of Lawrence's hands on his body so vivid that it'll only take him seconds to come. So he sneaks a hand down to his cock, closes his eyes, pretends that his hand is someone else's, subconsciously pretend that it's a hand that's been washed so many times today that it's all dry and cracked, since you have to be completely clean before you enter an operation room, that it's a hand that's so warm and so safe that it almost can make Adam forget, almost can erase the memories of blood, chains, guns, suffering.

That almost works as well as the real stuff.

**No direct smut, but hell, an M-rating hasn't hurt anyone! Hope you'll review! **


	4. The First Sign

**A/N: ****YAY! I'm back! Not with a smutty chapter, but I swear to God, they'll have mad, passionate sex soon! Just a few short chapters as warm-ups, and then, a long chapter of… (Shuts up) And until then, entertain yourself with this! **

**3: The First Sign**

Lawrence's stamina surprises Adam every day.

He's always seen Lawrence like one of those annoyingly polite people that always bothered him – before he fell in love with one of them, that is, then it felt kind of contradictory – and that's exactly why Lawrence should leave when Adam waves away his gentle questions, hisses at him if he as much as mentions their relationship.

Hisses simply because when Lawrence brings it up, it gets so damn obvious whose fault it is that they broke up. Despite what Adam says.

But Lawrence doesn't leave. He doesn't give up.

He gets annoyed with Adam. In the same way as he probably gets annoyed with Diana when she won't brush her teeth, but he stays. All the time.

He falls asleep on Adam's couch instead of going home to his daughter, ignores Adam's dry remarks about that he looks like a blond Sweeney Todd on the head when he wakes up the next morning.

And he checks Adam's vitals every fourth hour, he gets up in the middle of the night to do it, he brings Adam lunch, and if Adam looks skeptically at the hospital food that's like a brown-red mush on his tray, Lawrence picks up his fork and presses the tasteless substance against Adam's pursed lips until he opens them just to get him to shut up.

And this only makes Adam hate Lawrence even more. Hate him just because he makes it so damn obvious.

So damn obvious that he's never stopped loving Adam. That it never was his fault that they broke up.

That he'd never look down on him. That Adam, in his own broken way, is perfect in his eyes.

Adam hates him for that. Hates him and wants him even more.

Yes. He does. That's another thing that Lawrence's constant presence only underlines.

That Lawrence is just as cute when he wakes up in the morning, in a dirty t-shirt and ruffled hair, on the couch in Adam's room, stretches himself and yawns, as he is handsome when he comes into Adam's room, with his hair combed in a perfect parting to the left and that fucking clipboard in his hand.

That Lawrence can do more to him just by smiling in that brief way when he and Adam watch 'Seinfeld' together than any of those girls he's ever been with can do by walking up to him in the bar, through that cloud of smoky-sweaty-headache and poorly hidden horniness and smile seductively, seductively in the meaning _I don't want you to call me afterwards. _

Lawrence is always there. When he's off work and when Adam's asleep, then he sees his existence shining through his closed eyelids.

And then, Adam wants him, then and always, then he has to wait until he hears Lawrence's breaths get heavy and deep, and then walk into the bathroom, let his hand seek a way down to that place where his gown has turned into a hard bulge.

And the worst of all is that it's not a weak moment

When he wakes up in the morning, the desire is still there.

xxxxxxxxxxx

One day, when Lawrence walks into Adam's room with a brand new pen in his chest pocket (and by thus, it's placed to the left, he hasn't managed to gnaw at it yet) and smiles in that careful way, like Adam's head will explode if you show him too much joy, he has to ask.

"When are you letting me out of here?"

Lawrence glances at him over the edge of his clipboard. Adam knows what he's thinking when he looks at him like that, and the small part of his mood that went up by the fact that Lawrence didn't check for cuts on his arms the first thing he did when he entered the room, sinks drastically again.

"You've taken my damn razors away," he hisses. "And my apartment has probably been raided on drugs and cigarettes by CIA at this point, so what fucking difference does it make?"

Lawrence takes one of the pens from his pocket without answering. Looks down on the clipboard, sees it, doesn't see Adam, pretends not to see him.

And Adam screams. Into nothing, without words, without strength, just a completely brief, frustrated shout, and makes Lawrence jump, drop his pen, see him. Has to see him.

"_Stop _ignoring me!" Adam roars, his grey eyes are flaming, the ice around them melts for one single moment when he can't pretend that he doesn't care. "I'm fucking _sick _of this, is that weird to you? You just come in here and give me pills, and I can do that myself! So let me go home!"

Lawrence gives him a look, and now, it's his eyes that are covered with ice, and Adam hates that, but he doesn't have to see them for long, he quickly bends down and picks up his pen.

"For you to go home," Lawrence says calmly, "I have to be sure that you're going to eat. And drop the drugs. And the cutting. And I'm not even going to bother with the cigarettes, but reducing them a little wouldn't kill you. But either way, I'm not sure of any of this right now."

Adam tries to pretend that he doesn't care enough to talk back at him. In reality, it's been a while since he was indifferent in that wonderful way, since he was booked into the hospital, he's actually started to _care. _

He doesn't care about Lawrence, though. He's not that guy anymore.

He doesn't care about Lawrence's approval. He cares about his anger.

It's weird, but it's true. It's nothing that Adam planned, hell, he wasn't even planning to get taken in, he was going to sit there and cut himself and be happy forever and ever, but lately, he's discovered that the more often he can make Lawrence look up from that stupid clipboard that apparently is so much more important than him with eyes that are black, the more he can say something and watch Lawrence grasp for an answer for a few seconds before he walks out of the room without saying a word, the happier he gets.

Lawrence's annoyance nourishes him, his fury is the drugs he's not allowed to take anymore, it lifts him up, gives him a mean, childish joy, makes him strong, makes him whole.

When Lawrence is angry, he's on his level.

When Adam makes him angry, Lawrence can't be better than him.

And the happiness from that is his drug. Not marijuana.

"You're so fucking hypocritical here," Adam says instead. "You say I'm not allowed to use, because then, I have to go to bed without desert. But hell, I can't even remember the last time a nurse came in here without handing me a pill."

Lawrence rolls his eyes.

He closes down more every time, Adam's discovered. He used to ignore Adam's comments, or he just shot them back at him so they both were happy, but now, he doesn't say anything at all unless he has to.

"Maybe it's good for you to get drugs that aren't smeared in herpes," Lawrence says dryly.

"Maybe," Adam says. "If you haven't slept with the nurse that gives them to me, then it's gonorrhea instead."

Lawrence doesn't even look up this time. Now, Adam can just see his jaw clenching, like knots under his skin, before he says something again.

"You know I'm trying to help you, right?"

Softly. Like a growl.

Adam feels nothing.

"I haven't asked for your fucking help, Lawrence," he replies just as softly.

Lawrence sighs, still without looking up, before he closes his clipboard and looks at him again.

"You're annoying as a living hell, Adam," he says, still softly, "but you'll get my help weather you like it or not."

Then, he steps out.

Adam doesn't know how to respond to this.

If he's supposed to get pissed off our childishly happy again.

But now, at least he can establish something. He wants Lawrence to be angry with him.

He cares remotely about his existence.

That's the first sign.

**The first sign! The first sign of what, you might ask, but that's why I need you to keep reading! And reviewing! **


	5. The Second Sign

**A/N: And here, I bring to you, as usual after a way too long delay, a new chapter! And this is the last chapter wihtout any make out. Thing are heating up at the next update, I promise!**

**4: The Second Sign**

"Did you ever find someone new to marry?" Adam has to ask one day, when he actually finds himself happy when Lawrence enters the room, and said doctor stands next to his bed with his thumb on his wrist, checks his pulse, feels the life that throbs under the thin skin, feels the cold of Adam's body.

But Lawrence only furrows his brows, even though a childish kind of amazement flutters in the back of his mind over the fact that he can _feel _Adam's life under his hand, he keeps his eyes on his watch.

"Ssh," he mutters, annoyed, and Adam raises his free hand dejectedly.

When Lawrence then drops Adam's hand and it falls onto the sterile sheets with a crusting, he fills something out on his chart, that chart that Adam silently hates because he hasn't seen Lawrence for the whole day, and it still feels like that damn piece of paper is more important than him.

And the worst part is that he actually cares.

That's what he really hates. That's a hatred that goes beyond the hatred he feels for the chart, it's a hate that's too deep, a filth rooted so far into his heart that no other feeling can ever block it out.

"What did you say?" Lawrence then says and puts his pen into his pocket.

It's his oldest one. Adam has never seen him without it, nor has he ever seen such a worn pen, the tip of it is fringed, covered in a thin layer of Lawrence's tooth marks, and even in those black roots in Adam's heart does he feel a hot sting at that thought.

"Did you ever find someone new to marry?" Adam repeats. "A new sexy blonde that's so far out of your league that every time you see you two together, you have to ask yourself what you paid for her?"

Lawrence pretends not to hear him. Adam isn't sure if he should count that as a victory or a defeat.

"Nope," Lawrence instead answers, closes the clipboard and walks up to the couch in front of the only window in Adam's room. Apparently he's planning a long, healthy therapy session.

It's time to get the real Adam Faulkner out in the open, come up with a solution for his problems and blame his mother and that terrible thing that happened in that bathroom a few years back and that still deeply disturbs us all.

Because the poor kid can't keep living like this. He needs someone to take care of him and wipe away the tears that he sobs silently in the dark of the night when he's all alone.

Adam hates him.

Adam hates his pity.

"The only woman like that was Allison," Lawrence continues thoughtfully and puts his feet up on the couch. "And she wasn't that big on taking me back."

Pause. He kicks off his shoes and puts them on the floor, because God forbid that he'd have his shoes on the pretty little couch.

"Not that I asked her, though."

That last thing sounds more spoken to himself than to Adam. For a second, Lawrence just stares blindly in front of him, and there's a Moment, a brief Moment of how-did-I-end-up-here blows through the room like an icy breeze, before he snaps out of it and looks at Adam.

"What about you? Found a new feminist-vegan-punk who wants to put black lipstick marks on your concave little chest?"

Adam chuckles bitterly. It's terrible, but he is impressed.

"Whoa. Look who's strapped on a pair."

Lawrence smiles faintly. And so does Adam, until he discovers it, and then has to break another Moment by answering.

"No, if you really have to know. No new bitch."

"Can't you just be someone else's bitch, then?" Lawrence asks with a smirk.

Adam almost wants to laugh out loud. Lawrence's sharp retorts are quick and lashing like whips, they burn and they tear open skin, blood runs down in an even stream over the clinically clean sheets of his hospital bed, but he loves it.

Because it makes him proud. He feels it like a warmth, a comfortable, soft globe in his chest.

He remembers what Lawrence was like before they got together. Remembers the politeness, the formality, the I'm-so-sorry-I-exist. And sure, he's a lot like that now, too.

But he can do comebacks. He can use a whip. When he has to. And when he does, he does it in the exact same way that Adam would do it, exact same way as Adam has taught him.

Adam taught Lawrence something. He gave Lawrence something back.

Lawrence brought something other than his thrown-together packing when he left Adam's apartment that night.

Adam has a small upper hand.

And he's planning on keeping that.

"Not after being yours," he says softly. "You're good with hands, I give you that. But it wasn't worth it."

Lawrence tries to roll his eyes, but Adam swears that he sees a proud little smile in the corners of his mouth.

He wants Adam's approval.

Adam realizes that, and that is probably the happiest moment of his entire life.

"Thanks, Adam," Lawrence says, and now gives up on repressing that smile, releases it over his face and lets it up to his eyes, they sparkle palely, and that globe in Adam's chest gets even warmer. "You were pretty good with hands, too."

Adam laughs hollowly.

"Pretty? You're so fucking full of it. You couldn't even stand after that round I gave you that night."

"What night? The one in your wildest dreams?"

More heat in the globe. Creeps down.

"No," Adam bites back. "The one after _I _got _you _drunk, and not the other way around."

Lawrence chuckles.

"You idiot. If you had to get me drunk to get to be on top, I'd say I still had the upper hand."

"You never had."

"I did. Mentally."

Lawrence's smile turns into a grin. The insecure one. And by this, Adam gets the upper hand again. He almost lost it there for a while.

He tends to do that those few times when he gets so lost in his memories, when he takes Lawrence and disappears into the maze of his brain, when they're so vivid and so _real _that he doesn't even know what's reality.

But now, he's on top again. He's not Lawrence's bitch. He's not anyone's bitch, he'll never be, never again, he was once, he'll never be it again.

Never again will he lose that thing that he'd never be able to sell to pay his bills, that one thing that hadn't left him along the way, the thing that he'd started to rely on so much that nothing else fit into his life, nothing else was seen in the glow of it.

The glow of his pride.

Lawrence was beautiful. Adam remembers thinking that, the rare times when he had to admit to himself that he wouldn't survive without him. He remembers thinking that Lawrence was beautiful, not handsome or sexy or cute, but beautiful, he was shining, there was an aura of comfort and love and _home _around him.

But that took away his pride. That thought took away the thing that in his head still was the _only _thing, the only thing he had.

That's why Lawrence can't break him now. Not now, when Adam has his pride again. Lawrence was his sacrifice, he gave him to the angry Gods to give himself salvation. And a sacrifice can't be taken back.

So he doesn't have to worry over the fact that all his sensible thoughts, all his paranoia and all his anxiety is drowned in desire when he sees Lawrence's grin, doesn't have to worry that he thinks that he'll never go home again, he'll stay in this hospital forever, he'll sleep in the damn on-call-room, because he can't live without Lawrence. Again.

It's just a Moment. A weak one.

Lawrence looks at him. That grin fades away.

Pale blue eyes. And a globe that is now _too _hot, it burns against Adam's intestines.

"Come on, Adam," Lawrence says, and his voice is so soft and so caressing, so soothing as velvet and humming like a beautiful machine. "You always had me wrapped around your little finger. You know that."

Adam can't look away. His eyes are stuck in Lawrence's, through the white light from the grim fluorescent lamps, and Adam can't answer, either, he can only clear his throat, nod dumbly and pull his knees up in front of him so that the bulge on his blanket won't show.

Lawrence admits Adam's leverage on him.

That's the second sign.

**I guess you don't have to be Einstein to figure out that there will be three signs… All in all, the next chapter, you'll get to know what the damn things are signs of! **_**If **_**you review… **


	6. Anger Is The Heart Of Love

**A/N: Oh, this will be just lovely… Ladies and gentlemen, it's THIRD SIGN TIME! YAY! I can't wait to read your reviews on this one! This is also the first chapter with some smut in, even though it's nothing too bad… Anyway, read on! **

**5: Anger Is The Heart Of Love**

Over the next couple of days, Lawrence entire life seems to revolve around convincing Adam that he could've been dead.

Adam mostly replies to this by rolling his eyes, because he sees absolutely no point in pointing this out.

Yes, he could've been dead. That sort of was the point. He already was dead, in one way, since from what he's heard, living involves being outside your apartment, try something new every day, getting wife and kid and car and a fancy house, climbing fucking Mount Everest.

Life isn't staying in all day, watching reruns of 'America's Next Top Model,' feeling the cigarette smoke etching into your lunges.

So what was the point in dragging it out?

What was the point in taking up an apartment that all the politicians whine over the lack of when life wasn't important to him, anyway? When it was just like a birthmark or a scratch in the coffee table or something else that was annoying but still pointless enough to ignore?

Lawrence doesn't seem to agree, though. He's with Adam every second of the day, and when he's can't be, he sends twenty year-old wannabe-shrinks into his room, instead, and they sit there with their pads and their glasses and their charts and they ask Adam about his childhood.

But that doesn't bother Adam much. Those shrinks are just kids, for God's sake, he can silence them with a look, and in that way, they're almost better to be around than Lawrence.

And as long as they don't ask about the new marks on Adam's arms, the red little dots that are like freckles on his arms.

As long as they don't notice about the IV-needles that he steals from the nurses and hide under his mattress.

As long as they don't open the door to the bathroom and see him standing there, his arm bare, his skin pale, soft, vulnerable, _way too fucking vulnerable _to keep all of his fear, his frustration, his longing inside.

As long as they don't see him with the needle, stabbing that skin, stabbing it, punishing it, stabbing-stabbing-stabbing in almost blind fury, fury over himself for being so damn weak and over Lawrence for making him that way.

As long as they don't see him doing that, he can take anything they do to him.

xxxxxxxxxxx

One of the days when Lawrence actually is there, he's sitting on the couch in Adam's room, filling in blank spaces in his chart out of something that almost seems like boredom, and Adam asks himself how someone can do that voluntarily. But he still has to understand why Lawrence does _something, _because the anxiety burns in him like a roaring glow, too, he'll explode if he doesn't get to do something soon.

Lawrence quickly solves that problem, wonderkid as he is, by the way he always solves things: He pisses Adam off.

"I don't think you get it," he says to his chart, and Adam takes his eyes off his fingers, which have been strumming rhythmlessly at the table in front of him, and looks at him.

"Get what?"

"What you were doing," Lawrence says, still without looking at Adam. "If you had, you wouldn't have done it. Because you never wanted to die."

Adam almost laughs.

"If you hadn't been here to control my every move, I would've stood up and beaten your pretty little ass up."

Lawrence smiles sleepily and stands up, closes his chart and looks at Adam again.

"Lucky me."

Pause. He opens the chart again, and Adam finds himself wondering if that fucking chart's going to be a replacement for his pen-fetish as he pushes his table aside.

"Seriously, Adam," Lawrence goes on. "I know you. And you might've been constantly angry and quippy and the only one who could compete with Diana in sulking, but you weren't suicidal."

He doesn't use the voice he usually does when he talks to Adam about what he's been doing. Instead of that soft, smooth, icky-sticky-velvety-and-pink-lace-I-feel-so-sorry-for-you-little-one-voice, it's _his _voice.

His polite sarcasms, his edgy concern and his only slightly begrudging Lawrence-voice.

Maybe that's what gives Adam the will to smile venomously with a fake pout as he retorts.

"Because I'm a coward?"

"No," Lawrence replies simply, without a moment's hesitation. "Because you're a hardass."

The poison disappears from Adam's lips, and his smile gets sweeter, true and genuine, and he has to chuckle just because he, in the first time he can recall, actually feel flattered.

"That's right," he says, pretending to be confident, and rakes his fingers through his hair. "And, now that we're both aware of that, you mind telling me why you can't let me out of here and let me get by on my own?"

Lawrence looks at him over the chart, all the humor is gone from his eyes, and they're just cold now, cold, icily blue, and disappointed in that way that's always been able to make Adam feel like the worst person in the world.

"Because," he says, and his voice sound like his eyes, instead of the tickling warmth of his wittiness, it's covered in a thin layer of powder snow, "I don't want you to be alone, since I know what you do when you are, and because you have the ability of tossing people out on their asses weather they like it or not, so I figured I'd hang on to you while you still barely can walk."

Adam scoffs and fidgets with the edge of his blanket. He wants it to sound indifferent, like Lawrence's words haven't affected him at all.

But that's hard to do when the guilt vibrates through him, like a shrill, sharp guitar string.

He doesn't want to care. He _shouldn't _care. It was _Lawrence's _fault that it ended, _Lawrence's _faultthat his pathetic life became visible to himself, never his, never his.

But he can't say any of this.

Lawrence is so believable in his role – because that's all it is, that's _all – _as the betrayed one that not even Adam can believe something he tells himself every day.

"Fine," he says instead, and once again, it sounds more vulnerable than he wants it to. "Maybe it was my fault. But the only effect it had on your life was that you had to find someone new to feel sorry for. And you can live with that."

Lawrence once again looks at him over the edge of his chart without stopping his pen from swirling over the frail paper. He almost looks amused.

"My dear sweet Adam," he says softly, "this idea you have of me who only stayed with you because I felt sorry for you is a total fantasy. You need to let go of that."

Adam scoffs again. And this time, it sounds just as mocking as he intended.

"Oh, so you didn't feel bad for me at all?" He says with a smirk and lets go of his blanket. "You stayed with me because you wanted to be a part of the great wisdoms I gave you?"

Lawrence chuckles and fills in something on his chart.

"No," he says.

Doesn't look up.

"_You_ stayed with _me_ because you felt sorry for me," Lawrence continues distantly. "I stayed with you because I loved you."

Adam should know better.

He should know better than letting a half-hearted love declaration sweep him off his feet. He should know better, since he's spent so much time trying to undo the last time that happened.

He should know better.

But he doesn't.

Because this was the third sign. This was the moment he's been dreading since he was admitted at this hospital, in the same time as he's been waiting for it with an almost childish longing.

The third and final sign that there's still something there. Something that almost feels like the love he once felt.

Beneath the lust, the angrily sparkling, the heavily burning and scorching, there's still something else.

The third sign is that that thing inside him that has only been desire, only been that hollowing thirst for Lawrence's body, his hands, his lips, his tongue in Adam's mouth, turns into something more, it grows into love, grows into the thing Adam's locked up in a little box and hid in the very deepest, truest, part of his soul, and it's not hollow, animal lust anymore.

It's real. It's full.

And it's too much for Adam to handle.

"Get over here."

Lawrence looks up. His eyebrows are raised, expression surprised.

"What?"

"Get over here."

Adam, on the other hand, looks completely… Focused. Intense. His brows are furrowed, a stiff, jerky hand beckons to Lawrence to come over.

"Why?"

"Because I want you."

Adam almost barks it out. It sounds like an order.

"Because I fucking want you, and if you don't get the hell over here soon, I'm going to have to stand up and drag you over here, and I know that you wouldn't force a poor little invalid to do that."

Lawrence gulps as his mind draws blank.

As the lust he felt for Adam, the one that actually was pretty much based on doctor-instincts, emulates with his confusion. Because Adam's face is stony in a way he's never seen it, and Lawrence knows that he actually _will_ stand up and get him if he has to, so he steps over to his bed, even though he has no idea what he's doing, because he wants Adam, too, he wants him so badly that it hurts, he feels it like a burning longing in every cell of his body.

And Adam reaches up his hands, still jerky, still angry, still annoyed at his own weakness, but desiring nonetheless, he grabs Lawrence's collar, pulls his face down to him.

And he kisses him.

He gives in.

Because when anger is mixed with lust, it turns into something bigger, something stronger, a red and black swirl that runs through Adam's body, from his head like a violent, rushing high, and crawls down over his chest, down to his stomach, and even further, throbs down through his hips, makes his penis hard.

Adam swallows Lawrence's gasp of surprise, swallows every trace of breath hidden under his tongue as he forces his lips apart with his own, raids Lawrence's mouth, draws blood with his teeth, the liquid metal lingers with the taste of sweet saliva, and Adam pulls Lawrence onto the bed with him.

Lawrence doesn't fight back. Mostly because he has no idea what's happening, has no idea what's given Adam the confidence to take this much control.

Maybe it's because Adam is the only one who really is angry of the two of them. And this makes Lawrence feel oddly lost.

It doesn't mean that he's going to give up the fight, though. So Lawrence tries to make his hands move, even though he can't really feel them, and brings them to the sides of Adam's face, tries to regain some power, tries to coax out that confused, scared little boy he knows is inside of Adam, somewhere, knows it's there and knows how hard it is to make Adam acknowledge it.

Adam almost smirks when he feels the hands on his face.

_Right,_ he thinks and brings his own hands to Lawrence's lab coat, tears at the fabric, tries to get it away, tries to remove the one proof Lawrence has that he's so fucking much better than him. _You think you can get control that easy, you fucking idiot? You think you can get me out of hand with your touchy-feely-crap?_

_Well, guess what? I've grown. I won't be swept away just by that. I've grown so damn much that I actually can make you do whatever I want. Not bad, huh?_

Adam shifts. He does some weird maneuver, he's not sure howhimself, but it doesn't matter, because he's on top, he's straddling Lawrence's hips, Lawrence's hands leave his face, and Adam takes the opportunity to grab his wrists and pin them to the bedpost behind them.

And Lawrence moans. Again and again. It's almost funny, and Adam has to smirk once more at the effects he has on Lawrence.

_Well, well,_ he thinks evilly and leaves Lawrence's lips, kisses down his jaw line, finds a tender spot on his neck and bites down. _We've got a little masochist here, don't we? Seems like there's a sick side in all of us. _

_Doesn't it, Lawrence? Aren't you just _dying _to be controlled right now? Don't you just crave from the very core of your being for me to treat you like my bitch? _

His nails claw at Lawrence's wrist, like they're asking for an answer, and Lawrence swallows a grunt.

"I love you," he then whimpers.

Desperately. Like a prayer.

"Shut up," Adam hisses.

And he lifts his head again, kisses Lawrence on the lips, violently, his teeth draw more blood, it's like a lid over his palate, tastes like victory.

Lawrence is his.

He's never going to hurt Adam again. He will never do that, simply because he doesn't have the power to.

He won't even have the power to dominate Adam in situations like these, because he's Adam's now, and as his property, he can do nothing but accepting Adam's kisses, not struggle against the grip on his wrists, like handcuffs of want, accept the nips on his throat, the gentle tongue that runs over his bottom lip, down over his chest.

"Adam…" Lawrence croaks out.

"Shut _up,"_ Adam bites back again, and kisses him again, as if to silent him.

And it is effective. When Adam once again fills his lips with his own, he robs him of all the words, steals his breath and his will to be in control, for the first time in his life, and Lawrence says nothing, he doesn't even try to make Adam understand how much he loves him, understand that he'll gladly waltz right back into the bathroom and saw off his other foot if it brings Adam back to him.

There's no use. He barely remembers it himself anymore.

He doesn't remember anything. Not who he is, not why he's here, he barely remembers Adam, simply because Adam's nothing more than the object of his salvation and his bliss, nothing's happened before this, this is all, everything is Adam and mouth and heat and tongue and lust and grip on his wrists and Adam's lips that are everywhere, everywhere, on his lips and his face and his neck and his chest.

Adam loves this, Lawrence feels that just by his kisses. And he's not surprised at all. He knows Adam, knows that his need for control is just as big as Lawrence's. It's just that Lawrence is still struggling for this, while Adam's given up. Simply because he knows he'll never get this, unless he uses the strongest tool of his disposal: His handsomeness.

And when he uses that, even Lawrence gives up.

Or, no, he doesn't give up. He's still fighting, but that's harder to do now. Even though he's so far beyond an upper hand as it's humanly possible to be right now, that's not nearly as painful as it is to have Adam on top of him, feeling the hard bulge against the lower part of his stomach, feel Adam's teeth scraping against his throat and knowing that Adam is angry, that Adam's going to punish him, that he's going to keep lingering and touching and rubbing and _fucking _torturing until Lawrence practically _begs _him for relief.

That he won't do what Lawrence want most, won't roll him over to his stomach and tear his stupid jeans down and fuck him and fuck him and _god… _

Lawrence almost cries out in frustration and tries to tear his hands out of Adam's grip. Because yes, he's still struggling. And when Adam realizes this, he also realizes that he's going to have to take desperate measures.

So he lifts his head, from where he's been working at Lawrence's chest, lapping over nipples and nibbling at hot, greedy skin, and brings his face up to Lawrence's level, grabs his chin and brush their noses against each other, breathing hotly into his mouth, tastes his desperation and has to smile, because by _God, _it feels so good to win for once.

"Tell me what you want, Larry," Adam says huskily, and looks him in the eye through half-closed lids, that comfortable grey color his gaze usually have is brilliant with desire.

Lawrence gulps, wants to kiss Adam now that he actually is within his reach, but he knows not to. And Adam knows that he does.

"You fucking know what I want," Lawrence replies sternly, surprised at his own boldness, considering that he's never felt more powerless in his life.

Adam chuckles softly, places a way too gentle kiss on his lips, as if to remind Lawrence about who _does _have the power he's so empty without, and then pulls away again.

"Tell me what you want, Larry."

Lawrence hates him.

Hates him right now, loves him like crazy and wants him even more.

"I want to have you."

He says it in one single breath. And he doesn't know a better way to put it.

Adam is still smiling, though faintly, like it's a last smile before he drifts into sleep, and he grips Lawrence's wrist with only one hand to move the other one down, over his body, his chest and his stomach, and stop dangerously close to the part of Lawrence that is so desperate for his attention.

"And what if I don't want to take you?" Adam murmurs, and he's so close to Lawrence's face now that he feels their foreheads grazing each other.

Lawrence doesn't even have a bad answer for this. He just gasps wordlessly, tries to control the pulsing in his crotch and press closer to Adam at the same time, and apparently, this is close enough to an answer. Adam closes his lips in a smirk, kisses Lawrence one last time. And he actually does prop his own weight up on one hand, realizes that Lawrence is helpless enough now for him to let go of his wrist and rolls him over to his stomach. Finally.

Lawrence closes his eyes when Adam tears his jeans down over his thighs. Keeps them closed when he feels Adam laying down on top of him again, keeps them closed when he feels Adam entering him, not gently like he usually did those few times when he was on top, but mercilessly, almost brutally, and he places a gentle nip on Lawrence's shoulder, and Lawrence has to put his hand in his mouth and bite it to keep from crying out, because it hurts, it hurts so damn much because he's not used to this, in the same time as the pain is the best thing he's ever felt, since it's so real, so full and rich and piercing when it blows through him as a silent storm, up from between his legs and through his entire body.

This is simply a moment of masochism.

And also the moment when Lawrence realizes what the rest of Adam's hospital staying is going to be like.

**Gosh, hope I can pull this off… Well, I'll keep writing even if I can't, so what the hell. :) REVIEW!**


	7. Adam's Black Little Thing

**A/N: Hey there! So, there's no smut in this chapter, but in case you're nice and review, there might be some good lovin' in the next chapter… (Okay, I'm lying, there will be weather you review or not. XD)**

**6: Adam's Black Little Thing**

Yes, Lawrence really thought that when Adam rolled him over to his stomach, entered him and everything else disappeared, he'd gotten the rest of Adam's hospital staying spelled out for him, but he was wrong. To Adam, that lovemaking – Lawrence still can't say _fuck _as a verb, it rasps on his tongue – seems to be a one-time thing.

Less than that. Hell, to Adam, Lawrence in general seems to be a one-time thing, and a lot of times when Lawrence sees him, he wants to ask who really was fucking who when he was bored, and he wants it to sound just like the time Adam said it, but he doesn't.

Adam would tear his head off. And his emotional turmoil seems to be enough for him to deal with as it is. Lawrence wants to help him, but Adam doesn't ask, and Lawrence doesn't dare to offer.

Because he's never seen Adam as closed down as he is right now.

He doesn't even look up when Lawrence enters the room anymore. Doesn't whine the way he used to when Lawrence has to take a blood sample, and Lawrence misses that, because Adam's afraid of needles, he knows that.

Adam's afraid of everything, come to think of it. The Adam Lawrence remembers is afraid of everything, but would never admit it, and that's why the Adam Lawrence remember is so stupid, because he can't see what's right the hell in front of him.

Lawrence.

Lawrence would gladly take any fear away. His biggest desire is to smooth out the wrinkle between Adam's eyebrows, form that clenched jaw into a smile, to let Adam sleep a whole night without nightmares with Lawrence's arms around him.

And unlike the other desires Lawrence has, like Adam himself, this one's less of a stinging yearning in his fingertips, more like a dull, grinding ache in his heart.

He prefers the other desire, to be honest. He prefers the ones he can have, and Adam won't give him this one.

xxxxxxxxxxx

_Adam, you're a fucking idiot. _

_Go fuck yourself. I refused to be judged by a damn bug. _

The black little thing scurries around on his table. Its big eyes, white and blank like paper, stare up at Adam, almost curiously. Adam wonders why he's never try to smack it.

_You said it was a weak moment. _

_So? _

_You want him. _

_Again – so what? _

_You said you wouldn't want him after that one time. _

_Well, I was wrong. Big fucking surprise, I've been wrong before. Remember that time I said my photos didn't suck? _

The black little thing runs up to Adam's hand that lies on the table, and Adam snatches it away.

He hates the black little thing. He hates the sound of its feet, the _tickety-tickety-tickety _that runs over his floor. It touches him sometimes, crawls up his shoulder and tries to get into his ear, and that's the only time Adam voluntarily touches it to flick it away.

He's terrified of touching it. But he's even more scared of what would happen if it got into his brain.

The worst part about the black little thing is that most of the time, it's right. That's why Adam doesn't want it in there.

The black little thing is right, and the last thing he wants is that he's going to start believing it. Though now, he _has _to believe it, because it's more right than ever this time.

He wants Lawrence. By _God, _he wants him.

He wants him because those rough five minutes he was on top of him, _(you never got to be on top, that's why you loved it) _felt Lawrence shiver beneath him, felt the thought _he is mine, he's mine, I can do whatever I want with him _rushing through his head, those minutes planted a seed in his mind, it stays put and he can't shrug it off, either with pretending not to notice it or masturbation.

Adam quickly drops the thought of masturbation, though, because the next second, Lawrence enters the room with a brief smile. Without a clipboard, Adam notes.

"Are you saying hello to me today?"

Adam looks at the black little thing. The paper eyes follow every move he makes, he knows that, even though it doesn't have pupils.

It would be so easy to lift his fist, bang it down. Feel the damn thing turning into dust under his hand.

But Adam isn't that stupid.

He knows it will never go away.

"That depends," Adam says lowly, almost menacingly, doesn't look at him. "I wouldn't want to spoil you wit hellos."

Lawrence chuckles. And now, Adam knows without even looking at him, that he looks so disgustingly _understanding, _that he's just _craving _to open Adam up, look into his very soul so he can finally get to the bottom of why he's so screwed up, and they're going to have a really long talk, and Lawrence is going to be so fucking nice and fucking sweet and fucking, fucking, fucking fuck, Adam hates him so much.

What the hell gives him the right to come crawling back to Adam after the things he's done?

And why the hell would he do it when Adam's in a position where he can't run away or lock himself up?

It's hard when you hate someone and wants them this badly at the same time.

Adam's happy that their little encounter taught him that those feelings can be combined.

"Adam," Lawrence says and sits down on the edge of Adam's bed. "I think we should talk about what happened."

"Okay, now you definitely won't get a hello," Adam says and keeps his eyes on the table.

Lawrence smiles again. Adam hears something in his voice that he doesn't like. It sounds way too much like that thing that's in his own voice most of the time.

"Why not?"

Adam doesn't answer. What's with Lawrence today?

_He knows you want him. It gives him leverage. _

Adam's throat is starting to burn. He feels like a three year-old in a bad mood.

"Because you don't want to admit that you need me?" Lawrence says with that small smile lingering, Adam can see it on his retina.

He really does know Lawrence that well.

"Or because you're just ashamed that you showed it?" Lawrence continues.

He isn't really teasing. Lawrence doesn't tease, that's not him. He's stating, and his statements are true, but Adam still snaps and tears his gaze away from his little table.

"Fuck you!" He hisses, his eyes almost burn more than his throat. "Just because I fucked you doesn't it mean that I feel a giant loss now that I have the apartment for myself without everything smelling like your fucking six-hundred-bucks-cologne! You of all people should know that, you didn't fell magically in love with all the under-aged little girls you fucked when you were married, did you?"

And Lawrence doesn't even flinch. His eyes are still just amused, that modest little smile is still there, oh, Adam wants to slap it away.

But he settles for grabbing Lawrence's collar, pull his face right up to his, feels Lawrence's breath on his face, and for a second, his desire breaks free from the little box he's put it in, mixes with his fury, and he wants to kiss him almost as much as he wants to punch him. Almost.

"Look," Adam spits out, and even though every word should turn into a stain on Lawrence's face, they just pour off his stupid grinning mask. "_Don't _make a big deal out of this. I can get laid anywhere, _any-fucking-where, _but I haven't had sex in months, and as it is, you want me and you happen to be the person closest and I know you're good at fucking, so we can do it when I feel like it, as long as you don't think I'll get all clingy with you again. Because believe me, Larry, _I won't." _

And Lawrence still doesn't move a muscle. He keeps that little smile while Adam hisses and he keeps that little smile when he starts talking.

"I can get laid any-fucking-where, too," he says softly, without even removing Adam's hands on his collar. "I have a hundred interns, both male and female, and if they slept with me, their references would increase radically. So all in all, I don't have to sleep with you, and you don't have to sleep with me, but we still do it. What does that tell you?"

With those words, he releases Adam's hold on his coat and leaves the room with such a casual walk that Adam would start hating him again if he wasn't so wrapped up in his own thoughts and the black little thing's icy little voice.

**Don't forget to review! **


	8. Want, Need And All That Lies Between

**A/N: Hey, hey! Remember how I said that there's be some makeout in this chapter? Well, who am I to break a promise to my ChainShippers… Here it is, some semi-smut for Adam and Lawrence, little aware of how many that read about it…**

**7: Want, Need And All That Lies Between **

Lawrence is on call that night, after hours of surgery, occupied showers and way, way too little time with Adam.

He doesn't know what Adam does when he's not there. He didn't know what Adam did for that one year he left him alone, and look what happened. Adam's like a kid sitting in front of an open fire, when everything's sweet and warm and painted in a yellow glow, but leave him there for a second and he burns his fingers black.

Lawrence collapses on the top of a bunk bed in the on call room around two, pulls the surgical coat over his head and drops it on the floor, rakes a hand through his damp hair. Tells himself he should shower, and maybe check up on Adam on his way back to the room, maybe find his cheek with a searching hand in the darkness, maybe melt his witty tongue with his own.

But he doesn't do any of that. Lawrence falls asleep the second his head hits the disinfected pillow, with a relieved sigh breaking the silence around him.

This day hasn't been harder than any other. He's used to long surgeries, stitching up wounds and sawing in skulls. But when he has to do that with a worry over Adam like a heavy cloud over his head, that's when it gets too much.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adam's happy. He's truly, genuinely happy for the first time in, what, two years?

Adam's happy, because he managed to steal a scalpel from the OR today.

He went down there to see Lawrence earlier. Not for any special reason, he was just bored, nothing was on TV, the black little thing seemed to be taking a nap and even masturbation was getting old, so he went down to Lawrence's OR. Just to look at him.

And seeing Lawrence in action was fun. Everyone seemed to buy this there's-nothing-that-can-happen-here-that-I-haven't-already-seen-act he put up, even though Adam knew him well enough to know that it took Lawrence every ounce of self restrain he had to keep from dropping down to his knees and cry.

But he did go down there. And when the surgery was done and doctor Gordon had saved the day and the rest of the team had cleared out with the patient, Adam had walked into the OR, having watched it all through the big window to the room. And he'd made some small talk with Lawrence, as shallow as possible, but not so shallow that he wouldn't notice the hand that slipped into Adam's pocked, the glistening of the sharp knife that was devoured by his hospital gown.

And now, Adam's standing in the bathroom. The black little thing has woken up from its nap, it sits on the sink and watches him as Adam pulls up his sleeve.

_Should you really do that?_

_Why not? _

Adam snaps back it, with an almost sadistic grin, watches his skin, so pale, almost transparent.

_Do I really need to explain to you why it's not good to cut yourself? _

Adam's grin gets wider, he lets that be his reply.

People can say that his life is pathetic. He tells himself that every day, he spits the words out every time he sees himself in a mirror.

But no one can say that his life isn't real.

His own life is the truest thing he's met in the mist of lies that has_ been _his life, simply because it's miserable. Happiness is an illusion. It isn't real.

Happiness is fake smiles on commercial posters. It's the lyrics of a Spice Girls-song. Comics. Speech bubbles. Meringue.

But no one can say this isn't real.

And thus, Adam's finally found something that it's impossible not to feel. Something that always wakes up the cold, dead, stone dragon that is his emotions, it comes to life with a mighty roar, lets its flames lick over Adam's arm.

_Is that the only thing you feel, Adam? _

But Adam doesn't listen. He carves, flesh splits and blood seeps down, it drops down on the plastic floor, and it's real, the blood is real and the pain is real, it's flashing lights in the darkness of his stone cave brain.

_Is that the only thing you're capable of feeling? _

Carve. Drop. Drop down, drop down, make it real, make the rest real now.

But nothing else becomes real when the blood drops down. Adam had hoped that now that he'd become real himself, the rest of the world would, or it would at least look real, he'd see it through real eyes and the world would spring to life, like stepping into a painting.

But the painting doesn't come to life, everything is still two-dimensional, everything's still grey, and that almost depresses Adam more, since that means pain is all there is, no pain in the world can make his world real, his future real, his past real.

Lawrence real.

_Can you at least feel this, Adam? _

Yes, he can. So keep carving, keep dropping.

_Can you feel this, Adam? _

Yes, he can. So Adam keeps cutting, the scalpel forms almost beautiful patterns of crimson, sharp angles, straight lines and circles until he reaches his inner wrist and doesn't dare to go on.

_CAN YOU FUCKING FEEL THIS?_

xxxxxxxxxxx

And Lawrence wakes up with a gasp.

It's still pitch black around him, so it couldn't have been the light that woke him. And neither the sounds, he's still alone in the room. For a second, Lawrence thinks that he must've had some sort of nightmare without really remembering it – until he realizes where his hands are.

One hand is safely folded under his head, nothing wrong with that. But the other one is between his thighs, pressed tightly against his crotch, and Lawrence realizes, almost in horror, that it's rubbing a hotly aching erection, bulging under his dirty jeans.

Lawrence takes his hand away, though reluctantly, rolls over to his back with a moan and rubs his hands against his face, instead.

It _was _something he dreamed of, wasn't it? Something about…

Lawrence rubs his hands against his face for a long time. Like he's really thinking.

Even though he knows, surely and definitely, the only thing he could dream about to make him feel this way.

Even though the only thing he remembers is fragments, he knows it was a dream about Adam, a heated, sweaty, misty dream, with those tiny fingers on his hips, on him and over him and inside him and…

Lawrence cuts off his thoughts brutally.

He knows a safe way to solve this. He won't go to sleep this way, he knows that, but he hasn't hit that new low where he jacks off to his own perverted fantasies at his work place. Let's have some dignity.

Especially not when someone who can solve this for him is just a few feet down the hall.

Lawrence shakes his head to his own thoughts. Adam needs to sleep, he wrote that himself in his chart. And it's four in the morning, he can't…

_Because he wouldn't want it?_

_No… Because he clearly doesn't want to start things up again. _

_Is that the message you got before? He didn't seem that feisty to me. _

_But how good would it be for the whole moving-on-process to keep having sex?_

_Who said you had to move on?_

_But… _

_Sorry, you want to keep arguing, or go his room like we both know you will right away? _

Lawrence curses softly at his own weakness

_you can't say horniness, doctor? _

as he jumps down from the bunk bed, leaves his coat on the floor along with the slightest idea he ever had that this was something he could stop if he wanted to, and steps out into the hallway.

It's empty out there. Like a ghost hospital. But even if it hadn't been, Lawrence isn't sure if he'd even bothered trying to hide his erection, because Adam's room really is just a few feet away, a few feet away is his salvation and his relief and everything besides that is shadows and dust to him right now.

When he opens the door to Adam's room, Lawrence isn't sure why he works so hard to be quiet. Maybe he just wants to take the chance to approach Adam without see him hovering back, see that rogue thing in his eyes, like an animal spotting the best quarry it can get and hating it at the same time. But for no matter what reason, Lawrence tip toes up to Adam's bed, and stops to see the silver of the moonlight spreading its glittering flour on Adam's face.

He's beautiful.

Lawrence has never thought of Adam that way before.

Right now, he's not cute, like when he wakes up panting in the middle of the night with salty stripes on his cheeks, not sexy, like when his grin is so close to Lawrence's lips that he can taste the teasing joyfulness in it, but beautiful.

His face is relaxed, it's laced with moonlight, and Adam looks beautiful. And Lawrence is so aroused at this point that he forgets about his heartbeats, as powerful as they must be by now, they still don't get past the willpower he must put in his very breathing.

Lawrence crawls down next to Adam, covers them up with his blanket and glances over at the door to make sure it's closed. He snakes an arm securely around Adam's waist and pulls him closer, Adam whimpers weakly and brings a subconscious hand to Lawrence's cheek. And Lawrence nuzzles past Adam's barricades, past the invisible, punching hands around him, finds a soft, defenseless spot on his neck and there plants the kisses that have been anxiously waiting on his lips.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adam has always been a sound sleeper.

The thing is, he hardly ever gets to sleep. It used to be the fact that he never left his apartment, thus never got tired, and later on, it was the fear of the darkness that kept him up, so when he _did _fall asleep, he was so tired that a meteor couldn't wake him up, but now, even in his sleep, he feels something.

He feels something reaching down to him. Or into him.

Into his true self, it reaches past the fear and the anger he's pretended to turn the fear into.

It reaches into him, the vibrating warmth, he feels it like a formless radiator next to him on the bed, feels the hands like focal centers moving all over his body, something small and warm and safe and wet grazing over the crook of his neck and… Mm. Yeah, he likes it.

He likes it because it wakes something up in him that not even the stinging criss-crossing scars on his arms can bring to life, and he feels his back arching into it, without his own accord.

It's his body that acts for him now.

His mind is too drenched in confused desire to think about crap like that.

xxxxxxxxxx

Lawrence grins for himself when Adam moans sleepily and moves his hand down to his waist. Adam can do that, Lawrence doesn't mind, but right now, _he _still wants to be the one dominating.

Being out of control was painful enough, even when it led to Adam giving him what he wanted, finally, _finally, _after waiting a whole year.

Now, Adam's going to be the one on the bottom. He's going to be the one writhing, moaning, begging. Begging the way Lawrence would beg for him any day if he'd only take him back.

Lawrence moves his lips to Adam's throat, positions himself on top of him.

On top. In control.

And tasting Adam's skin with seething tongue and hungry lips, digs his teeth into soft flesh, and Adam moans weakly, he's still not completely awake, but from somewhere, down in his sleep, does he find the presence in the situation to sneak a hand into Lawrence's lab coat, under his shirt, feel the naked skin beneath and pushing Lawrence into a feeling he's not comfortable with.

He'd prefer it if Adam didn't move right now. Adam is his, or at least he's not Adam's, and when he gets so damn greedy for more of that hand on his waist, more of Adam's touches and Adam's kisses, it knocks him out of his position.

And in the meantime, he knows as well as Adam that he won't ask him to stop it.

Lawrence then, as some sort of self-assurance, moves his hand in under Adam's hospital gown, strokes over his stomach, and makes Adam grit his teeth, still without opening his eyes. And Lawrence takes his lips away from Adam's neck, and does something that he himself thinks is pretty odd: He moves his nose into the nape of Adam's neck, over his collarbone, sniffing, searching, seeking for a trace of the scent he used to find here, a trace of tobacco and cheap beer and soap, and on his hands, tiny and cold on Lawrence's face, the smell of takeout and chemicals from the darkroom, and it was all so Adam, so much Adam that he'd run his tongue over those hands if that would only make Adam stay in his mouth all day when he was away from him.

But that didn't help. Adam went away. Not just from his mouth, but also from his life.

And when Lawrence for the first time walked home to a living room that didn't have Adam sitting on the floor with his back leaning against the couch, something in his heart died.

Something that Adam now brings back, as Lawrence keeps placing gentle kisses as far down over his chest that the neckline of his gown allows, and Adam's surprised grumble, his one hand that finds a good place in Lawrence's hair and the other one that strokes his waist with the small energy he has right now, is like drugs to that now woken feeling, it nourishes it and kills it at the same time.

Because this will kill Lawrence. He knows that.

Whatever in his heart that died before is back right now, but that kills something else.

His sensibility, for example. His control. His self respect.

The idea he actually had, as stupid as it sounds now, that his life with Adam was something he could get past.

Lawrence manages to break free from Adam's neck long enough to pull the hospital gown over his head. Adam shivers tiredly when the clinical air hits his bare skin, and finally opens his eyes, they're like light slits in the darkness.

"What're you doing?" He mutters, but still doesn't take the hand out of Lawrence's shirt, still doesn't stop raking his fingers through Lawrence's hair.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Lawrence replies huskily and brings his lips down to Adam's again, and if Adam ever showed any reluctance to this, it's all gone now, and he tears Lawrence's lab coat from his shoulders, but other than that, he barely moves anymore until Lawrence stops moving, too, when he lays next to him with the scent of sweat and groans and semen like a perfume of lust around them and his hair is sticking together.

Lawrence hasn't had sex in months. Not before that time with Adam, and he'd actually forgotten how much inside you that freezes if you don't fulfill that need. And now, that it has been fulfilled once, it's just like Adam's need to see real life, a life that isn't dirty razors and drugs when you can afford them and a bunch of food that you don't allow yourself to eat.

When Lawrence's need has come to life, it gets to life good, he wants more and more and more, and because of this, he actually likes the fact that Adam doesn't move at all, since that gives him the chance to take what he wants, Adam's naked body is his buffet, he can take what he wants and give all of himself back, everything that he's bottled up since Adam had him before he can give Adam with a series of moans rising in his throat.

And Adam just accepts it. Maybe because he's tired and thinks that he might as well let the damn kid have some fun so he can sleep later, maybe he thinks he owes it to Lawrence, but either way, he lets Lawrence roll him over to his stomach, lets him enter him, moans when he pushes into him, arches his back when Lawrence's hand finds his erection, grunts approvingly when Lawrence leans forward and places a gentle nip on the back of Adam's neck.

Or maybe he just accepts it all because he knows that when Lawrence climbs down from him, lays next to him with one arm over his head and the other one safely draped around Adam's back as he cuddles up next to Lawrence with his head on his shoulder, that the hole that Adam left in his heart isn't even almost filled in.

**Aw, those two are so in love… And I'm not trying to set off any lovely Christian out there, but even if they hadn't been, I'd still make them have sex! XD Anyway, review!**


	9. People Don't Change

**A/N: ARGH! Sorry about the long update, but my computer crashed, so… Anyway, I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't pretty much one of the angstier fics I've ever written, but I'm warning you: Things **_**will**_** get worse in this chapter! And then it'll get even worse, and then worse, and then worse, and then… Then we'll see… **

**8: People Don't Change**

Lawrence is right. It's long overdone, and this one right he gets is nothing next to the giant disadvantage he's in right now, but he has right about this. Maybe the reason Adam kept it away from him this long is that he wanted to get as much upper hand as possible, and then throw Lawrence a bone. Maybe. If he's lucky.

But Lawrence was right. Now, he's right in what he thought before. About how when Adam's hot, gleaming lips left his own, when he rolled him over to his stomach, his future as Adam's doctor and his lover was spelled out for him.

That's his reality now.

Lawrence feels dirty. All the time. Those framed awards on his walls are things he's so undeserving of now that he feels like tearing them off that fancy-ass oak surface, because he's not a doctor anymore. Adam's his only patient right now, and he's stopped treating him. So why should he call himself a doctor?

He's gone from doctor to booty-call. Because every time he enters Adam's room, he can't keep himself from doing the mistake of looking up from his chart and see Adam's face, his black eyes, the clenched jaw, the fisted hands on the blankets that are Lawrence's loosened handcuffs, because Adam doesn't even have to lift them to make Lawrence walk up to his bed in two big leaps, bend down to Adam's level and once again give him everything he has to offer, give everything and get everything back just by the knowledge that Adam does want him, that he's not useless to him.

That thought has taken Lawrence away from an occupation that he used to love.

And the worst part is, as unimportant as that fact might seem, that he closes the door, _he closes the fucking door after himself _every time he enters Adam's room.

After twenty years of being a doctor, he's never done that, but he does now, because in reality, he knows what's going to happen if he does that.

And he wants it.

He wants it, and he doesn't even _try _to make Adam stop doing this, because he _loves _just to feel useful, hates being out of control but loves Adam's growl when his fingertips scrape against Lawrence's skull, tugs on his hair, loves it just because it shows that he needs him.

That no matter what he says, he did miss Lawrence.

No matter what he says, Lawrence is the reason of the black spots of nicotine on his chest X-rays, the traces of marijuana in his blood samples.

And it really is wrong that Lawrence is so grateful of that.

_You know that's the first sign of midlife crisis? _That mean little voice in Lawrence's head says as he sits in the doctors' lounge alone. _To be so damn desperate for approval that you get happier than you've been since your daughter was born that a twenty-eight year old little junkie takes the time to fuck you after he's spent a year trying to drink you out of his head?_

Lawrence doesn't answer. But yes, yes, that's true. He's happy about that, since that proves that even though Adam is so convinced of this that he doesn't even know that he's lying, it's not true that Lawrence looked down on Adam. It was Adam who broke them up, but Lawrence has always refused to believe that he never meant anything to him.

And just by grabbing his shoulders and pull him onto the bed with him, Adam's proved him right on that point.

_He'd kill you if you said that to his face. _

Lawrence chuckles. Yeah, that's probably just another thing that's true. But that's the Adam he knows, the Adam he loves.

The Adam he knows needs him.

So why the hell are they dancing around this?

Why do they do that, when Adam needs Lawrence, and Lawrence doesn't need Adam, he _craves _him like he's never craved anything before, needs him there to survive, can't stand the thought of going home to an apartment where Adam's pictures aren't hanging in clothespins on strings in the bathroom, where he can't run his tongue over Adam's hands to keep him with him through the day as chemicals and takeout.

When the thought of Adam all alone, without having someone who makes his life worth enough to keep him from doing what brought him to this hospital, makes his stomach turn.

So Lawrence stands up and walks out of the room. Through the hallway, up to the door of Adam's room. And later on in life, Lawrence will remember, even though right now, he's really too excited to even register the thought, that he thinks when he places his hand on the doorknob: _Things are going to change now, Adam. _

And later on in life, Lawrence will remember him as very childish when he thought that. Because people don't change, especially if they're like Adam, and hate their life but are too afraid to change it, because they know that they can't do that on their own. If they want to change their lives to the better, they're going to have to let people into it. And that's not a risk they're willing to take.

Maybe that's why Lawrence sees what he sees when he openes the door and steps into Adam's room.

Maybe that's why he sees Adam sitting cross-legged on his bed, his arm bare, shimmering in the fluorescent lights, with old scars, some almost faded away, some thin, white chalk lines, some are fresh and pink.

One that's splitting up right now. Like a highway that opens under the scalpel in Adam's hand.

Red blood that splashes softly onto the white sheets. Crimson on sharp white.

Crimson and clover.

That's the first song that Lawrence learned to play on a guitar. For some reason, that's what Lawrence is thinking of when he leaps forward, just like the other times, only this isn't sexy at all, not at all, only terribly red on white, only flashing and shrieking, only the cruel laugh in Lawrence's head that asks him how, _how _he could ever be so stupid that he thought he could make Adam change, and tears the scalpel out of Adam's hand.

Adam smiles.

It's a crooked smile, a mischievous grin, joyously sparkling eyes that look up on Lawrence. He's not ashamed at all.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Lawrence almost sounds polite. Like he's making conversation, and Adam's grin gets wider.

"Why are you asking, Larry?" he shoots back calmly and lifts up his blanket to put pressure on his new wound. "Are you saying that you didn't know that I was doing this?"

Lawrence doesn't answer. And Adam laughs, completely mirthlessly.

_So much. _

_So much for trying. _

"Come on," Adam says coaxingly, and can't keep the cringe away from his face when he wipes away some of the blood, the sheet gets even redder. "Why do you ask? And why do you care? You don't love me, you never have. We both know that."

Lawrence can't even answer. Can only stare.

How can Adam say that?

How can he be so stupid? How can _any _man be so perfectly, utterly void of any trace of intelligence?

"If you did, you would've done something sooner," Adam goes on, and it's not him talking anymore, it's someone else, someone very stupid and so evil that Lawrence feels himself shrinking under his gaze. "I mean, seriously. If you didn't know me well enough to know that after you left, I'd turn into a fucking train wreck, then I really was just a piece of ass, weren't I? So why didn't you come along on your big white horse to save me earlier if you _loved _me so much?"

Lawrence still can't answer.

It's hard to think of reasonable things to say when you feel the good will, that's been the only thing that kept you on your feet for a very long time, crumble in your chest and wither down into your abdomen, mix with stomach acid, turn into slime and filth inside of you.

It's hard to talk when you see all your efforts, everything you've done to save someone you love from himself, getting crushed under the sole of his shoe, when you realize that he never wanted you to save him, that he didn't want it and you can't do it, anyway.

But Lawrence does talk. Slowly, methodically. Completely calm. But without any control.

"Then why don't I just discharge you right now?"

His face is completely expressionless. Adam still has that grin on his.

"Yeah, why don't you?"

"Oh, I will," Lawrence says, and his voice has gone from toneless to empty, surrendering. "Because you're right. I never loved you. I just treated you for a while because I wanted to keep you in the hospital, where I could fuck you without having to drag my ass all the way to your apartment."

That grin. Lawrence hates it.

He does hate it, but he doesn't bother to care anymore. Adam doesn't want him, anyway, doesn't want to be saved. And right now, he's so damn useless to Lawrence that he doesn't really feel like saving him, either.

"I mean," Lawrence goes on, emptily, grey and dull, "it's not like you're all I've thought about for this past year. It's not like you saved me from myself, or that you opened up this whole new world where I didn't need to be in control, or a beautiful wife or a beautiful house or whatever. I just needed you. That was all. And as long as I had you, I could be whatever I wanted."

Maybe Adam's grin falters a little. Maybe. But Lawrence doesn't care at all. He's as empty as Adam's heart right now.

"That's not the case at all," he finishes off. "It was all about sex."

And then, Lawrence turns around and leaves the room.

Whatever it was inside him that Adam first brought to life, then killed, and then reincarnated again, is left behind. But he doesn't care anymore.

**Aw... And I've still always thought of Lawrence as the more openly romantic one of the two of them! Who's to save their relationship now, you might wonder? Well, I'll tell you if you review...**


	10. The Death Of Adam

**A/N: Okay, there are NO excuses for how slow I've been on this update, and I am just so damn sorry about that… But I've been crazy busy with homework and stuff, but I'm on a holiday now, so at least I'll be able to update my next fic on this side of World War III! I hope…**

**9: The Death Of Adam**

Lawrence doesn't feel like working.

He loves his work most of the time, but he doesn't want to work right now. He's never wanted to be at the hospital less in his life, hell, even after he and Adam got rescued and he had to be in here, when he had Adam for comfort and still felt like Jigsaw would hop out of every dark corner, did he feel less like being here than now.

And the weird thing is that he hasn't gone home once since Adam left.

He lives in the on call-room now. He doesn't remember what it's like to not sleep between disinfected sheets, or what food that doesn't come from a cafeteria tastes like, and he hates that, he wants to go home and see Diana and he wants to see Adam, and in the meantime, he can't do that, even though he has four days off saved up and he doesn't even work when he's here, anyway.

He can't go home. Because if he went home, he wouldn't dare to call Adam just to hear his voice, and even less do what he really wants, see him, hold him, say that he doesn't care what shit Adam's done, he wants him there, now and always, when he leaves in the mornings and when he comes home, smell his fondly hair, taste his eager lips.

Lawrence can't do that when he's home. He can do it every day here.

That's why he stays. Because he doesn't know what else to do to keep Adam with him. This way, he can at least look at the nurses' station and remember.

_That's where Adam came to see me at work once, he wanted to have lunch, he wore his black jeans, his smile was crooked. _

Lawrence can draw his hand over the sheets over his bed and think that they've probably changed the sheets, but this is still the bed, this was the bed he woke up in with his hand between his legs, sweaty, ashamed, hot and bothered by the effect Adam had without even touching him.

Lawrence can sit on the couch in one of the hospital rooms, look at the bed through a thick fog of tears and think that they've definitely changed the sheets there, too, since it's been almost two years, but this is still the bed, this is the bed where he and Adam first met after the bathroom, the bed where Lawrence had laid, high on morphine but still in pain and still in a terrible mood, he'd grunted in annoyance when he heard someone enter his room right when he'd managed to drift into uneasy sleep.

That was the door Adam had walked through.

And Lawrence can name the exact spot where Adam had stood, stood with his gaze lowered and a nervous smile, where he'd shuffled his feet a little while Lawrence just stared at him in awe, until Adam looked up, briefly, so briefly, and then couldn't contain himself anymore, but mumbled something sarcastic, maybe to Lawrence, maybe to his own weakness, and then two big strides and basically fall into Lawrence's arms, wet his neck with tears that he tried to keep away with an angry fist on his cheeks.

And if Lawrence would actually get the guts to stand up and walk back to Adam's apartment, open the door, walk inside, ignore Adam, if he could, if only for a second, and walk into the bedroom, he would see the unmade bed with the yellowing sheets, not disinfected at all, and he would think that this was the bed where Adam and him had first made love, fumbling and insecure, realizing the complications but not hesitating one damn bit, that first bed that had been one of many places after a while, been conquered by the floor in the living room, the couch, the counters in the kitchens, the front door that Lawrence had pressed Adam up against, both arms spread, wrists nailed to the wood, one heated, sweaty night when they'd barely been able to contain themselves after being out.

Lawrence rakes a hand through his hair and puts his feet up on the couch. Yes. He's in here right now. Because the longing got too big, but it's not his fault. He's only human.

Only half as human when Adam isn't around.

He used to feel nothing. When he discharged Adam, he felt nothing, because that's the only thing he _could_ feel to be able to do it.

Because he couldn't stand being around Adam. Couldn't stand nagging about who broke up with who, couldn't stand to tell him that he loved him and see his words slip from Adam's skin like it was hard, shiny plastic, couldn't stand being taunted by the kisses, the touches, the occasional, rough lovemakings, rocking and grinding, made the hospital bed smack against the wall.

And neither can he stand the thoughts about what Adam must be doing right now.

Can't stand the thought about the red, dripping ink licking down over his arm, a razor that's too dirty to reflect any light.

Can't stand the thought of the drugs, the booze, the cigarettes, the self-starving.

So he doesn't think about it.

Switches off. Doesn't think. And doesn't work.

He does nothing and he feels nothing.

He's a combination of how Adam and him were before the bathroom.

The thought hits Lawrence like a hard wind against his head, and he has to take his chin out of his hand.

Right now, he's acting just like he did before the bathroom, before _Adam, _only worse. Because if he keeps going down this road, he's going to sit there years from now, not only numb, a zombie with broken dreams scattered at his feet along with the dirty laundry, but he's going to be even worse than before, since he won't _do _anything, either, he won't just do something to please everyone else and forget all about himself, not even grant himself the luxury of wishing for something better, he's going to sit there, not save lives, not care about anyone else and not about himself.

He's going to be one step lower than he was before.

And Adam won't be with him. Adam's going to have forgotten all about him, and Lawrence won't want to save him.

Won't have the energy. He might be willing to save him after his afternoon nap, but not before then. That'd be too hard.

And Adam will die. He will die, because Lawrence is the only thing keeping him alive.

Lawrence is the only thing keeping him alive, even though he can barely keep himself alive. Because without Adam, he's nothing, too.

Without each other, they both die, because without each other, everything is just like before, just like before.

And the fear of that is even bigger than the fear that Adam will hurt him again. So it's not that hard for Lawrence to stand up, take his coat off, drop it to the floor.

Having a doctor's coat tailor-made costs almost three hundred bucks. Lawrence doesn't care.

xxxxxxxxxxx

_Do you miss him? _

_No. _

The black little thing is remarkably still. It usually scurries around, runs in circles around Adam until it comes up to his ear and he has to hit it away.

It can't come into his brain. Then he'll go insane for sure.

But anyway, it's completely still now, and it still has those big, blank paper eyes. Adam isn't sure why it's so blurry before him, why his cheeks are wet and warm and sticky, because he doesn't cry.

Why would he cry? It's not like he hasn't gone through this before, he didn't cry the last time Lawrence left him. He went numb, he bought marijuana and he didn't eat and he smoked-smoked-smoked, but he never cried.

_Come on, Adam. The only one here to fool is me, and I don't buy crap like that. _

_What? _

_You cried. _

Adam lifts his chin from his knee.

_You cried your eyes out. Never when it was light out, but as soon as you'd smoked your cigarettes, bought your pills from your dealers and gone to bed, you cried like a damn baby. And you didn't cry because you missed getting fucked, you cried because you missed _him. _And you didn't miss him because he left you, you missed him because you knew it could've worked, you knew he could've loved you forever, just like he'd promised, if you'd only let him. If you'd had the balls. _

Adam has no idea where the black little thing comes from. He's never cared to question it, but one conclusion he's made is that it's cooperating with everyone else, Lawrence, the doctors and everyone else who are against him. Those people want the black little thing there, that's why they keep telling him to eat.

They want him to eat so that the black little thing will get nourishment. Not him, they don't give a fuck about him, they just want the black little thing to grow, become the black big thing that fills every corner of Adam's apartment, crushes him with its big black feet.

Because they know that Adam doesn't get stronger at all when he eats. He just gets weaker, since if he eats, he always has to carry an even bigger weight of his own self-loathing.

The black little thing, on the other hand, loves it when he eats. Because then, it seems even more energetic than usual.

That must be why it says this now. Adam had a sandwich this morning, that's why it lies this way, says such terrible things, crushes the wall of empty words that Adam's built around himself with its tiny feet.

Adam hates it.

He feels it. Physically. His battered, weary heart grows black, it spreads like ink on wet paper.

He hates it.

He hates the black little thing, he hates Lawrence, he hates them both and he hates everything else that runs around like this, scurries around in his apartment without even really being there, tells him what he needs and makes him believe it.

Believe that he needs them.

So that night, Adam actually does the first attempt ever to kill the black little thing. He lifts his hand, bangs it down on the table, but the black little thing runs away, _tickety-tickety-tickety _over the floor, and Adam runs after, swings after it with hands and feet, finds something on the dresser and throws it after it, chases it through the apartment and attacks it with everything he finds, pretends not to see the ghosts of everyone he hasn't allowed to be in his life hovering in the corners.

Never do they get happy. Never is he enough.

But this is all he can do, don't they get that? Destroying, pushing away, throwing things after everyone that tries to come into his head. That's all he can do!

Adam falls asleep about two hours later, in the shards of his apartment and with a piece of his now broken coffee table as a pillow, with a smile on his face.

The black little thing is gone. It's gone for good now.

**Damn, this story just gets weirder and weirder, doesn't it? Ah, who cares. I know that some of you must like it, despite the black little things and Adams passing out. So, review and tell me how amazing I am!**


	11. And Now His Reawakening

**A/N: Okay, I know I have a habit if telling you that there'll only be one more update, and then I rant just enough to have to split it into two chapters, but the next chapter is DEFINITELY the last one! Which means that everything has to work out fine in this chapter… Or does it? (Evil laugh) Read and find out…**

**10: And Now His Reawakening**

It feels like Lawrence arrives in the nick of time.

Which is stupid, really. You don't have to be a doctor to tell that Adam hasn't really hurt himself, at least not more than he usually does. His knuckles are bruised and bleeding, he's pale and sweating, and his face is so relaxed that it's almost scary, but the scars on his arms are glowing, red, angry, shiny, pulsing under Lawrence's palms when he runs his hand over them.

Adam isn't relaxed at all. He hasn't just passed out. He ran around until he did.

Maybe that's why Lawrence feels like he got here right before it was too late.

But despite that feeling, he can't just lift Adam up and carry him down to his car. Despite that feeling, despite the fact that the small part of him that's still a doctor right now, and not a heart-wrenchingly worried lover, tells him that if Adam lays on the dirty, broken glass in the coffee table for too long, there will be wounds on his back, and they will be infected, Lawrence sits next to Adam for a while, leans his back against the couch. The tears on his cheeks are as still and silent as the rest of the room.

Because he doesn't know what else to do. He cries because he's tried everything, _fucking everything, _and nothing works.

Nothing works to get into Adam. Into the real him.

Into that soft, terrified, warm center that's beneath all this cold, this independence.

Into the center that needs Lawrence there.

_Adam…_

Lawrence runs his hand through Adam's damp hair. Soft and thick, just like he remembers it. Misses it.

_Adam, I wanted to give you everything. I wanted to give you everything, and I still do. I promise._

_But I'm only human. Even if we've established that I'm only half of it when you're not around, I'm still not a damn movie character, I'm not the prince in Sleeping Beauty, and you're certainly not the princess. I can't do this forever._

_Adam, remember how you always laughed at those cheesy lovey-dovey movies we watched sometimes when we were too drunk to turn something else on? You know, where these girls like Jane Eyre wait all their lives just to get the man they love, she washes his clothes just to smell his shirt, she watches his kids just to see him come home at night. And it wasn't just the alcohol that made you laugh at that, it was your intelligence. You laughed because you knew it's not possible._

_People don't work all their lives to get close to someone. They give up, because they're weak and they're stupid. And I am, too. I don't have the energy for this anymore._

_So I need you to wake up now. I need you to open those beautiful eyes and look at me. And I need you to… _Really _look. _

_Try that, Adam. Look really hard, or, no, just glance over at me, and you'll see. _

_See that I love you. I've always loved you. And you've always loved me. _

_You just need to grow some balls and admit it. _

Maybe Adam can hear him. Lawrence doesn't really care, he turns into a doctor after that, and he stands up, wipes his cheeks clean from vulnerability, lifts Adam up.

He has to wade through shards of the broken coffee table to get to the door, and when he does, Lawrence tangles his foot in the loose wires from the inside of the phone that lies next to the door. The receiver's split into halves, it looks like an Easter egg. It'll be interesting to hear why Adam's done this to his apartment when he wakes up.

Oh well, we'll deal with that later. First, put pressure on all the wounds to stop the bleeding. Put his shirt over his nose and mouth to improve respiration.

And when you're in the car, make sure the pupils aren't dilated.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adam's previous hospital room is still free. Lawrence puts him in there, he doesn't even admit him as a patient. He'll be out here soon, anyway.

He hopes so. It's hard enough to see him as it is.

In reality, Lawrence loves Adam too much to give him ultimatums. It's true that Adam always had him wrapped around his little finger, but it's time to break free. Break free or stay there forever.

Lawrence tries to be consequent. But he can't deny that he's crying again, he cries endlessly, and even though he hates it, he doesn't even try to stop it, just sits on the couch by Adam's bed, watches the purple knuckles, the parted, white lips, the scars like white tiger stripes on his arms.

The love is so strong that it paralyzes him.

It's like Lawrence has been hurting all his life, even the time he spent with Adam, simply because of all the old pains that were like black, monolithic tar, coating the glitteringly beautiful hardwood floor beneath it, and now, if Adam just takes those stupid thoughts away from him, just erases the word _has to leave him _from his mind, the tar will go away, too, everything else will go away, everything will be okay.

Adam definitely doesn't hear that. Or he just doesn't care, the arrogant little punk, because Lawrence sits there and weeps silently for quite a while, until Adam finally finds it to his liking to open his damn eyes. Squint against the light like a newborn baby, moan and shift a little until he rolls over to his side and sees Lawrence.

It's completely quiet. Lawrence doesn't know where to start, and Adam doesn't really seem to have enough grasp on the situation to get what he's expected to say, so they just stare at each other for a little while before Adam opens his mouth.

"Hey, man…"

"Hey."

The crying has stopped. Lawrence doesn't notice it. Adam clears his throat, it seems to cost him great effort.

"You know what?"

"What?"

"I killed it…"

Lawrence sighs and rakes a hand through his hair.

"What did you kill, Adam?"

Adam almost laughs, it's like a sudden sunlight over his tired face. Like he thinks Lawrence's lack of knowledge is just endearing.

"The… That fucking black little thing…"

"Okay."

Pause. Lawrence doesn't know a way to question this.

"What does the black little thing look like?"

"Oh, you haven't seen it?" Adam says lazily and stifles a yawn with his hand. "It's… It's sort of like a spider, it's all small, and… It has big, white, round eyes, it covers almost all of the head… And it just… Hangs around here sometimes…"

"Does it talk?"

"Yeah, yeah, all the time," Adam says and waves his hand. "But… Mostly to tell me how useless I am. It gets kind of old."

His talking grows more rapid, like he's gaining confidence.

"And now you've killed it?"

A silly grin. And sudden, strange heartache.

He won't have to miss this.

"Yeah…"

And another pause.

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you, man…" Adam says awkwardly, and Lawrence would get shocked if he wasn't fighting tears. "I… I sort of thought you worked with that black little thing, because you kept telling me to eat… And the thing was, when I did, I could just lay on the bathroom floor and put all my energy in not throwing up, but the black little fucker, he… I think it got bigger, actually, it was kind of scary… But, you know… It came from a good place, right?"

"The nagging?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," Lawrence says and nods along with himself, leans his chin against his fingertips. "Yeah, it came from a good place. Listen… Was that why you smashed your whole apartment? To get to… The black little thing?"

Adam blushes weakly and rubs his fingertip right below his hairline, because he does that when he's uncomfortable. Another memory that's not useless anymore.

"Yeah, I guess… Was it really bad?"

Lawrence chuckles, even though the tears have gathered up in little glass pearls in the corners of his eyes. Fuck them.

"And I thought you were flimsy," he says, and Adam laughs insecurely. "It looked like the hurricane Gloria has barged through your living room."

They laugh at that for a little while. Then they sit there, quiet, with the memories of everything they can't live without seeping up through the floor.

"You know," Adam says after a few seconds. "Now that the black thing is gone… And believe me, I'm fucking euphoric over that, but… It came with a price, so you think you could help me rebuild all those things I've apparently wrecked? When I get out of here?"

"The living room?"

Adam grins again.

"Yeah. The living room."

"Sure. I'll help."

The memories that were just a little stream a few seconds ago is now a river, it reaches Lawrence to his knees.

"And…" Lawrence begins, loses his toehold and starts again. "When we've built it up, can I bring the king-sized bed back to your place? Because I don't think we can both fit into that tiny one you have now. And I refuse to sleep on the couch."

Adam shrugs, pretends to be reluctant, pretends to still be in control.

"I guess that'd be okay."

"Good."

"Yeah. You want to watch some crappy Jane Eyre-movie on Channel Five?"

"You bet."

Lawrence stands up, walks up to Adam's bed and lies down next to him. Puts an arm around his shoulders, and Adam stiffens at first, but eventually leans his head against Lawrence's chest, coyly.

He might as well get used to it. It's not like he's going to get away from it now.

Adam turns on the TV that hangs in the ceiling with the remote on his nightstand. He says nothing. Lawrence says nothing. And neither of them need to.

**Aw… Finally some happiness! Seems like even I have to give them a break after ten chapters… Anyway, review!**


	12. What Love Can Do

**A/N: Yes, as a matter of fact, this **_**is **_**the last chapter! And it's not even that long! I'm so proud! Anyway, without further ado… Let's make things clear up, shall we? **

**11: What Love Can Do**

Lawrence didn't lock the door when he took Adam to the hospital. Adam opens it without using his keys, and with a strange feeling of solemnity in his chest.

Not fear, though. He knows what he's going to see when he comes in. And he knows that he's going to need Lawrence's reassuring hand on his shoulder to stand looking at what's behind that door.

But Adam still opens the door. Because Lawrence's hand _is_ there.

And it's all he needs to face his apartment.

Adam steps through the door. Lawrence follows him, and when he closes the door behind them, Adam notices that there are oval-shaped jags on the other side of it, too. He must've kicked it.

Everything really is ruined.

The bookcase is knocked over. As is the TV, the cord is snapped in the middle and the screen is scattered across the floor. Those shards of glass are mixed with the dirty ones from his coffee table, so covered in brown circles from his coffee cups that you can see them even after the table is broken, like shattered circles that now are only slightly bent lines, a mere inch long.

The cushions on the couch are torn, too. It's weird that he'd destroy that, hell, he's spent the past twelve years on that thing.

Adam stares at the frozen scenario in front of him. Lawrence is standing behind him, the hand on his shoulder squeezes safely, securely. Comforting.

Adam would be really sad. He did love his apartment, after all. He hated it because the walls closed around him, hated it because it was all he could get, hated it because Lawrence moved into it, underlined it all, underlined everything that didn't work out the way it was supposed to.

But he did love his apartment, too. Because it was his safe place.

It was his first own apartment, something he could hold up as evidence when his dad made his usual phone call about how he might as well move back home, because he'd never make it on his own, anyway.

To which Adam always replied the same thing.

_At least I can fail on my own, right? _

And he could. Adam quickly learned that: If he'd have to ask for help to actually get something out of his life, he'd rather fail.

Because he didn't need help with that, and because it was his.

He had something that was only his and that he was good at. He didn't have to want it, he just had to have it.

That fact remains: Adam has never, in his entire life, done anything he's wanted to do. Something he longed for. Because he learned so early on that life isn't that kind, so there was no point in longing, anyway. And Lawrence underlined that, too.

But he also underlined the things Adam _could _do.

Things that weren't failing.

He underlined the dreams Adam had that he didn't even dare to acknowledge, simply by pissing him off so much. He underlined the fact that if Adam really didn't want anything more from his life, he wouldn't be this mad at someone who'd already reached his goals.

He wouldn't be this mad at someone who didn't make him remember his dreams again.

Adam glances over the shards of his apartment. Or, that's an exaggeration. The damages seem to be limited to the living room. Why would the black little thing be so picky about staying here?

When Adam thinks that, another thought that makes the sullen blueness in his heart, only for a second, turn into white, flashing, freezing panic, and he turns his head to the left so abruptly this his neck almost kirks.

Then he gets calm.

It's still there.

That thought, on the other hand, almost makes his eyes water. God, he's such a pussy.

"It's… Still there…" He mumbles and throws his arm out meekly at the place he's looking at.

Lawrence follows his gaze.

"What? The darkroom?"

Adam nods.

Still there. All the pictures.

Even the good ones. Adam blinks, he's not going to cry over some damn pictures.

"Maybe… The black little thing…" Lawrence begins, in a tone that clearly shows that he still has no idea why Adam calls it that, "…Maybe it knew that it could never destroy your pictures. That you'd never stop wanting to take them. And turn them into something bigger than stalking."

Adam shrugs.

"I don't know. Maybe."

And now, a moment when he's too vulnerable. Shows Lawrence that his photos actually are another thing he succeeded with on his own, succeeded because he had _talent _– God, the mere word is so scary he barely dares to think it – so he loves them, more than anything in this apartment, he loves them.

Loves them so much that he's never let anyone see them. Because if someone said a single bad thing about them, he'd never be able to recover.

But only for a moment. Then, Adam gets himself together, turns to Lawrence with a stupid grin, throws his arm out at the living room again.

"Will you help me?"

Lawrence glances at the abandoned battlefield, hesitating a little first, but then nodding.

"Sure. It's… It's not that messed up."

Pause.

"If we work together, we should almost be able to make it better than it was before. Don't you think?"

Adam raises his eyebrows halfheartedly as some sort of recognition. He doesn't see a point in giving a more energetic answer. Especially not considering that they both know that they're not talking about the apartment.

The apartment is so much easier to talk about, though. Because what they're really talking about is something that's not only so much bigger, but also so much more broken, it's a beautiful mirror that's now broken into millions of silver shards on the ground. Seven years of bad luck.

Adam and Lawrence only have the frame left. They're going to have to build it all up again.

And it's all Adam's fault.

The realization is almost too much for him. He's bottled it up for so long now, when it comes out, it comes out with a _bang, _it fights it way out of Adam's soul with tooth and nails, and it hurts.

That's why he's suppressed it for so long. Because Adam doesn't deal with things that hurt. He pushes them down or he lashes out at them, since he's been told all his life, both from himself and from others, that he'd never been able to handle them, anyway.

He didn't deal with the bitterness over his own cowardice when he was younger. So he ended up in the bathroom.

And when Lawrence came into his life, he still hadn't dealt with it. But when he saw Lawrence's success, he was reminded of the fact that he was going to _have _to deal with it sooner or later. And he didn't deal with that insight, either.

So he tossed Lawrence out.

And now, when Lawrence is back, he's going to have to deal with that. He's going to have to deal with his bitterness, his stupidity, his fear of life, his love, his love that's so big that it almost fills out the broken apartment, rises up to the ceiling and blows it apart.

He's going to have to deal with it all, because he'll never get rid off Lawrence now.

And it's only when Adam feels the stroke of the thumb on his shoulder, that he's sure he'll be able to do it.

Because it seems so hard now. Almost unbeatable.

"Adam."

Lawrence's voice is so grave, Adam's attention is caught immediately.

"What?"

"Look at me."

Adam doesn't want to. He has to work to turn his head at Lawrence's direction, and even after that, Lawrence still isn't satisfied, he has to grab Adam's shoulders and turn his whole body towards him before he's happy.

"Adam," Lawrence says again, puts two fingers under Adam's chin to really make sure that Adam listens to every word he says. "I never left you."

He's too serious. So serious that it's almost impossible for Adam to escape it.

"I know."

Lawrence doesn't even pretend to hear him. Damn it, he already knows Adam too well to buy that.

Apparently, it doesn't matter how hard Adam struggles.

"No," Lawrence says when he fixes Adam's gaze with his own. "It's _very _important that you get that. Because if you don't, you'll just toss me out again, and… I'm not sure if I'll handle that. It was hard enough the first time. I… I love you too much."

Also, his eyes are too blue. Adam really can't escape them, and words can't explain how uncomfortable that makes him.

Maybe he still hasn't learned what happens when he hides things from Lawrence. Or maybe he just doesn't want to learn.

But Lawrence will teach him. He seems to be very determined about that.

"I never broke my promise," Lawrence continues. "I never stopped loving you. And if you… If you _let _me, then I'll be able to follow through with it. If you just get into your stupid little head that _you _left _me, _and not the other way around, I _will _stay here. And I'll always love you. Like I said."

There is a 'but.' Adam would've pointed that out in an acidic tone if he hadn't been so fucking nervous.

"But if you don't get that…"

The words get stuck in his throat, they're too frightening to be said just like that.

"Then I will leave you. Because I can't walk around and… _Convince _you all the time. I can't do that. Okay?"

Adam can't answer right away. _Christ, _he wishes Lawrence could look away, or at least blink, because his eyes are scary. They're not just looking into his Adam's, hazy with drugs from the hospital and the tiredness from having to get over the biggest phobia of his life within the period of five minutes, they're looking into _Adam, _and Adam can't even answer the way he always does, by simply not answering at all, just slap it away and huddle back into his own loneliness, because then, he's going to lose Lawrence forever.

And he can't do that.

Because just like Lawrence, he's not strong enough to repeat the events of this past year.

It's a new year now, a new time. A whole new life has begun.

So maybe he's just going to have to get over it.

Maybe it really is that simple. And maybe he at least is that strong.

Or maybe he's just that much in love.

"I love you, Lawrence."

He's not sure what answer Lawrence expected. He doesn't really care, though.

Lawrence will stay. He will stay because he knows that Adam means it.

Adam gets fully convinced on that when he feels the lips on his own. Soft and wet, sweet and warm, opening, tasting him. Entering him.

The real him.

This is who Adam really is. This is him.

He really is the Adam he was born to be when he's standing in the middle of a stale brokenness, when everything has fallen apart around him, when a frail sun has risen over his face and when the scars of a previous life are still shining from his arms, but with Lawrence there, Lawrence who kisses him, discovers him, erases the scars with the brush of his fingertips.

Adam is only real when Lawrence is there. He'd disappear in a light mist, like the smoke from his cigarettes, if he didn't have Lawrence here.

Adam could've said all that when Lawrence's moth leaves his own. Or at least he could've said that he's sorry, he's so sorry, so sorry for all the crap he's brought down on Lawrence, for the year they had to be apart that wasn't very long, but still just long enough for both of them do wither away a little inside, that it's never going to happen again, because they both just love each other too much, that he'll carve all his scars open again if it makes Lawrence realize how sorry he is.

But he's not going to say that. Because the best way he can show Lawrence how sorry he is is to leave all that behind, he knows that.

The best way to show that he's sorry is to get his goddamned act together.

So instead, he says this:

"Do you want to see some of my pictures?"

That's almost the same thing as saying all that, after all.

**YAY! Another completed fic! Not my most read one, perhaps… But hell, the ones who did read, thanks a lot for doing that! Adam, Lawrence and me will miss you! And please leave a review as a party gift for us!**


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